The Fred Hollows Reserve
Situated in Randwick with entrances in Alison Road and Bligh Place, the Fred Hollows Reserve is only 430m long, but contains one of the last remnants of gully forest in the eastern suburbs, and provides habitat for the threatened Gully Skink. Plant types that are to be found in the Reserve including natives such as Eucalyptus Piperita and Acmena Smithii.
The reserve was named in memory Professor Fred Hollows (1929-1993), an eye doctor who traveled across outback Australia and then the world to cure eye disease in poor communities. Fred Hollows was a local resident of Randwick who helped preserve the gully from future development.
In the late 1970s Fred set up a team to attack eye disease in Aboriginal Australia. In three years they screened over 100 000 people in outback and disadvantaged areas.
By the 1980s Fred was travelling all over the world to set up eye health programs in developing countries. He persuaded Australians to donate more than 6 million dollars to support the construction of an eye lens factory in Eritrea, Africa. In 1990 he was named Australian of the year. By the time he died of cancer in 1993 he had set up programs to prevent blindness all across the globe. The Fred Hollows Foundation has now helped to restore sight to over one million people in the developing world.