Your Sustainable Communities 2010

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Your Sustainable Community

Your guide to sustainable living on the north coastAnother great publication!

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Your Sustainable Community2

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Editor: Michael McDonaldDesign & Production: Ziggi BrowningAdvertising Manager: Angela Cornell

Client Liaison: Amanda BennettFront cover illustration: Ross Johnson

Contributors: Nina Bishop, Victoria Cosford, Giovanni Ebono, Luis Feliu, Mary Gardner, Daniel Harper, Eve Jeffery,

Kel Raison and Lani Summers. Photographers: Jeff Dawson and Eve Jeffery, plus images from Stock.XCHNG – www.sxc.hu.

© 2010 Echo Publications Pty LtdABN 86 004 000 239

Village Way, Stuart Street, MullumbimbyPhone 02 6684 1777 Fax 02 6684 1719 Byron Bay: 95 Jonson St. Ph 6685 5222

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Printed on recycled paper

Your Sustainable CommunityAn Echo supplement

www.echo.net.au

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What’s in it for you – a look inside…Building for comfort … p4 and mother earthMaking yourself at home with nature

Our unwanted home p5 companionsHow to cope with little visitors

Wanted – a sense of humus p6 when compostingGiving your garden heaps of help

Aiming for best office practice p7Your desk is part of the planet, too

Buying locally organically p8 the way to goYou can fill your plate in the neighbourhood

Rescuing ourselves from p9 speedy eatingSlow down, don’t let your food move too fast

Go go gadget shopping p10 doesn’t offer all the answersSometimes you get what you want by not getting anything

Feral fashionistas seek out p11 sustainable clothingNever mind the fabric, feel the recycling

Solar neighbourhood program p12 – a winner in the Tweed Shireand further Council initiatives

Neighbourhood juice p14 undermines the baseload myth about power generationTake control of your energy use

Moving lightly through p16 the landscapeTransports of delight are ahead

Educator Katrina Shields p17 keen about making a differenceByron College teaches sustainability

Fantons are foragers for p18 future generationsThe founders of Seed Savers rock on

Helena Norberg-Hodge sees p19 localisation at the heart of survivalA planetary perspective on resilience

THE TWEED SHiRE

THE BYRON SHiRE


Your guide to sustainable living on the north coast 3

Brunswick Valley Nature Festi val

Celebrati ngBiodiversity

Mullumbimby Civic Hall and around the Brunswick Valley

4 June – 6 June, 2010

Friday 4 June, 6.00 – 9.00pmOpening night for Visions of the Valley photo competi ti on at Civic Hall.Saturday 5 June, 8.30am – 3.00pmOutdoor acti viti es including basket weaving, am and pm Bush Birds walks at Brunswick Heads and West Byron Wetlands and, starti ng from Mullumbimby Civic Hall, a Botany Walk, Habitat Walk, Riverside Restorati on Walk and Bush Regenerati on Workshop.Sunday 6 June, 9.30am – 4.00pm: World Environment Day Seven guest speakers will talk about the Brunswick Valley’s biodiversity from the perspecti ve of their special experti se. Presentati ons will cover repti les, migratory birds, soil biology and pest species.

Full program at www.brunswickvalleylandcare.org.au

This is the second of our supplements about sustainability. It offers not only ways to help protect the biodiversity of the planet but also to enhance your own life through good living.

Many people would be familiar with the 1970s British sitcom The Good Life which tracks the efforts of a forty-something couple to escape the London rat race and set up a sustainable household in the suburbs. Much was made of the amusing contrast between the Goods and their conventional neighbours, the Leadbet-ters. Now, thirty years later, the tide seems to be turning and the Leadbetters, with their high-consumption, status-conscious, high-stress lifestyle, may be becoming the unconventional couple. The change cer-tainly offers humans and the planet alike a better chance of survival.

To many the challenge of sustainability might seem to be about ‘less is more’. Certainly the good life seeks to thrive on less consumption, less plastic, less waste, less energy use. But in their place it offers more good food, more resilience and more satisfaction at living sustainably. Quite of-ten the enthusiasm of those who’ve grown their own vegies, raised their own chooks and pumped energy back into the grid instead of sucking it out is palpable.

In the following pages we cover topics as diverse as creating the killer compost pile and becoming a dedicated follower of low-impact fashion – I’m a great fan of the House Of Vincent myself. We also interview living examples of the commitment to sustainability, who by their efforts provide promise of a saner world ahead.

One of the points the articles and the green-footed tips emphasise is that you

are not alone in your efforts to create a sustainable lifestyle. You can join in projects such as Sustainable Streets or Seed Savers or take a course in greening your curry or getting to know butterflies. It’s also a good way to meet your neigh-bours – and exchange jams and eggs.

The move to local resilience on the

north coast is well underway, with farmers markets, Slow Food convivia and carpool-ing, to name a few. A sustainable future might night be on every governments’ agenda, but there’s no reason we cannot take positive steps of our own.

Good luck and have fun.– Michael McDonald, editor

Felicity Kendal and Richard Brier, stars of the 70s sitcom The Good Life

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;

Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

The arts of building from the bee receive;

Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave.

Alexander Pope

Whenever I have found my-self stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say.

Wynn Bullock

One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.

Black Elk

Look! Look! Look deep into nature and you will under-stand everything.

Albert Einstein

Further steps towards the good life


Your Sustainable Community4Giovanni Ebono

Our buildings consume energy (and other resources) in two different ways. When we build them, we consume energy and lock up resources in the build-ing itself. When we live in the building we also use energy: primarily to warm it and cool it. This article looks at how approaches to building can reduce our energy footprint and ensure a robust and vigor-ous future.

Small dwellings have small footprints.

The energy directly con-sumed in the home has increased by about one third since 1970 and one fifth since 1990: heating and cooling ac-counts for most of this.

The Australian Greenhouse Office estimates that between one third and one half of the energy consumed in Austral-ian homes is used to heat and cool them. In the US and the UK, where freezing winters make heating a life and death issue, that number is closer to 60 per cent. Building homes to minimise the energy required to keep us comfortable, then, is a huge contribution to a sustainable future.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the major reasons that we consume more energy that our grandparents is that our houses are much bigger. From

the semi-rural setting of the Northern Rivers it is easy to scoff in righteous indignance at the McMansions of the Gold Coast, but every time you convert a verandah into a bedroom, open up a wall to create a larger space, or throw a roof over the driveway you are embarking on the same journey. We love to enclose and control our environment.

The same urge drives us to throw huge windows into our houses and gaze out across a vista, lord of all we survey. The cost of our love affair with the view is also measured in terms of energy. Heat passes readily through these windows, in both directions, making it harder to control the internal climate.

Fortunately, the answer is

not to seek out caves or return to the musty curtains and pelmet boxes of the nineteenth century but to intelligently har-ness the rhythms of nature to our advantage.

Build smarter not larger.With a little forethought,

we can use natural rhythms to increase our comfort. Shutters, for example, can control the amount of afternoon sun pour-ing in your western windows and so warm your house in winter and cool it in sum-mer. Deciduous trees on your western wall will achieve much the same effect for almost no effort.

The classic passive home has large northern windows, shel-tered by generous eaves that shade the wall in summer but allow plenty of the low winter

sun into the northern living spaces to warm the house naturally. The southern rooms then have a well warmed northern wall in winter and, with high windows above the central wall, can have their own access to winter sun as well.

There are some stunning ex-amples of this approach in the area, including Nina Bishop’s hand-built Mullumbimby home (see picture above) that she opened to the public in 2008. Search You Tube for my chat to her on the day.

By planning and building to maintain control of the airflow through the building you can place stair wells, hallways and doors to avoid heat traps and frigid zones that become energy suckers.

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Water tanks, earthen or stone walls and other heat masses can be used to absorb daytime warmth and release it slowly at night and with clever design the affect can be max-imised in winter and minimised or reversed in summer.

Smaller, smarter buildings are obviously important com-ponents of a sustainable future, but the materials we use are also important.

Lightweight homes, made out of recyclable materials have a light footprint, but have to be regularly replaced. The big advantage of building out of cement, or stone, is that build-ings can be designed to last a very long time. The best way to

save energy in the future is to build buildings that will serve future generations instead of having to be pulled down in fifty years.

Concrete and steel form the foundation of modern building practice and both are very energy intensive. Cement, as we know it, is basically burned limestone. It consumes huge amounts of energy to make and the chemical processes involved in making it release large amounts of carbon dioxide. Cement manufacture accounts for around eight per-cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, more than the entire airline industry.

We need to adopt alterna-tives where possible. Pozzolana

and gypsum cements offer one type of alternative, hemp-based solutions another. These are both traditional approaches used by those historical heroes of concrete, Roman aqueduct builders.

If we use materials that will last a long time in a form that will last a long time, then we have made a major contribu-tion to future generations. If that form also costs very little energy to run, we are starting to make a real difference.

n Giovanni Ebono is a publish-er and author who has edited and written many books about sustainable living. Links to his recent projects are available at www.ebono.org.

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Mary Gardner

The joke goes that cockroaches will survive after the Great Nuclear War that wipes out humanity. The truth is that already, they are up one or two on us. First, over the past 250 million years, a group of cockroaches have evolved into termites. Second, the key to the success of termites is that they are social insects. Can we, social primates less than three million years old, outsmart them?

To begin with, we need to identify termites properly. They may be called white ants, but they are not. A termite’s head has straight antennae, in contrast to the bent ones on an ant. A termite’s body is thick, while an ant’s has that charac-teristic narrow ‘waist’ between the middle and final segment

Both types of insects fly. The two sets of termite wings are the same size, while the sizes of the ant wings differ: the top set are larger than the bottom set.

Why do termites fly? Just as for ants, flight is the privilege of males and females in mating mode. The successful royal couple sets up a colony, which may include other royal pairs. This is unlike ant colonies that depend on one queen, ferti-lized in one nuptial flight, who stores the semen for use over the years to come.

Protozoa at workOver time, the termite

queen’s abdomen becomes so much larger that she cannot move about without assist-ance. The social lifestyle of termites provides for her. In the colony are workers, who are her attendants. As a caste, the workers not only hunt for food but they also feed each other. Their guts are filled with not only bacteria but protozoa which digest the food first.

The workers feed all mem-bers of the colony. Sharing these excretions, from either mouth or anus, is a strategy for success. Sharing saves time and also ensures that the useful microbes get spread throughout the colony.

This strategy can also be the downfall of the colony. One major ecological role of ter-mites is in clearing dead wood by tunneling through and then eating the softer parts. There are five families of termites with very different habitat preferences. Only certain dry wood species and many subterranean ones forage in human housing. They can be tricked into eating and sharing poisons.

Bait programs Such bait programs are an

emerging technology. Until 1995, the standard practice was to repel termites altogether from a house by surrounding the foundation with a barrier of chlorinated hydrocarbons such as DDT or organophosphates. The thinking was that dead termites scared off foraging workers.

These poisons are effective for thirty years at most. As we now know these chemicals are quite toxic for people and many more other species, they are banned. Some new prod-ucts such as chloronicotinyl (based on nicotine) and fipronil (also used for treating fleas on pets) are effective but have side effects on other species.

Interestingly, baits or barriers made of boron, considered not more poisonous than table salt, slowly and surely upset the guts of termites. This leads to the collapse of the colony. An-other bait is a bioagent. Spores from a fungus Metarhizium anisoplia work like boron from the outside of the termites. But the soldiers of the colony ap-

pear to bar entry of returning workers covered with too many spores. Still, only a few spores are needed to get inside, where conditions allow the fungus to dominate for up to two years.

But whatever the bait or barrier that is used, 21st cen-tury best practice is to use an integrated pest management approach. Site management is critical: the house founda-tions, whether on piles or a slab, must be clear of standing water. To survive outside the colony, termites meet their need for high humidity by keeping building moist tun-nels. A reliable source of water helps them a lot.

Physical barriers Physical barriers are also

important. Stainless steel mesh is very effective, under the soil and all around the house. So is graded gravel.

Besides these deterrents, watch out for bridges from earth to untreated wood. Avoid garden brooms leaning against the house, tree branches that touch the house and garden pots on wood decks. Termites forage up to fifty metres from the colony so walk your prop-erty boundaries and watch for signs of tunnels.

Surveillance also means regular building inspections. Some specialists recom-mend installing tiny Perspex portholes into wood frames so that you can quickly assess any hidden activity.

n Mary Gardner is a biologist, writer and tutor. See more at www.mgardner.info

Our unwanted home companions

➤ From previous page


Your Sustainable Community6Nina Bishop

Zero organic waste to landfill is a worthwhile ambition. Organic waste, such as food and garden waste when disposed of in landfill generates a po-tent greenhouse gas called methane. A generation or two in the future we’ll look back at the way we buried our ‘waste’ as strange behaviour indeed.

Byron Council made a good call when they voted recently not to implement an organic waste service to Byron Shire residents. I take it as a vote of confidence in us to deal with our kitchen and garden waste in the more efficient way – at home in our yards or perhaps with the help of a neighbour. The benefits of producing compost are enormous: it improves all soils, sandy, clay and everything in between. Compost or humus is the sexiness of soil, the culmination of carbon with an abundant variety of micro-organisms and nutrients in a form readily available for plants.

Building a compost heap is precise but easy, it’s evident to me now, how-ever, that it can take a little practice before your humble heap takes up a good life of its own. Scientific research in 2004 found that poorly managed unaerated composts could produce as much as 20 times the amount of methane as produced in aerated piles. Getting it right can take a little tweaking and A.D.A.M. here explains it very well.

Composting is not about just adding kitchen scraps

to a pile of grass clip-pings in a corner of your backyard. These two

ingredients can make up some of the mix, but more

diversity is needed to have a healthy biological metabolism. Gathering diverse ingredients for

healthy compost is about being opportunistic and

seeing waste as a resource.

Pruning and weeding for me now is as much about collecting materials for compost as it is for the other obvious reasons. Fallen dry brown leaves are an excellent addition to help with the very necessary carbon to nitrogen ratio. This may sound technical but it’s really only about diversity – achieving a balance of this diversity is very much a feel thing.

There are lots of ways to develop your sense of humus – ACE courses, demonstrations at Farmers Markets and Sustainable Streets events. In

fact there’s probably a person living nearby who’s passionate about grow-ing plants naturally and can be spot-ted salivating over a handful of good homemade compost. Byron Shire Council and Sustainable Streets are gearing up to support these ‘compost-ing champions’ to help people in their neighbourhood feel at ease with this very natural and rewarding process.

n Nina Bishop is the Sustainable Streets program coordinator for Byron and Tweed shires.

Win a prize for your school too• fruit trees • log hollow habitat home

• gardening tools • rainforest trees

www.surveymonkey.com/s/compostbyron

Council would like to increase the level of recycling food scraps and garden waste. We need your feedback.

Tell us want you think with this online survey.

Contact Jude Mason 6626 7077

WIN great prizes$50 voucher at farmers’ mktsmovie passes compost bin

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Don’t Waste Our Earth

COMPOST SURVEY

Half of what we throw into the garbage bin in Byron Shire is food and garden vegetation. This organic waste ends up at the Myocum Landfi ll site where it is buried and slowly rots and decomposes. As it breaks down it sends off methane gas which is a harmful climate changing, greenhouse gas. All of these organic materials can be used to make compost instead and this can then go onto your garden and your garden will love you for it!

Lots of people feel that compost bins are: smelly, attract mice and are hard work. Others don’t know how to compost or have tried and failed. Well take heart …. Council’s current online compost survey is showing that lots of people are not sure about composting and are a bit confused about how to do it. So you are not alone!

If you learn a few basic steps about composting (and believe me composting is very basic its NOT a scientifi c formula at all) you will make good compost that doesn’t smell, isn’t attractive to mice and rats and actually works for you!

If you’re having trouble making good compost you’re probably not using the right recipe!

It’s like baking a simple cake .. you just need the basics. One good secret is in layering the green food scraps layer (nitrogen layer) with the brown dry layer (carbon layer).

You need 4X the brown layer for every layer of green food scraps!

You also need to aerate your compost or turn it to get the process working!

Why not learn how to compost properly. You just need to learn it once.

If you have a spare 5 minutes you can learn how at:

• Farmers Markets - New Brighton and Mullumbimby - each morning quick & easy demos are being run by Council with great give away prizes

• Mullumbimby Community Garden workshop on Sunday 27th June

• Download an info brochure at www.byron.nsw.gov.au

• Contact Jude Mason at Council on 66267077You can also buy cheap recycled plastic compost bins for $35 and worm farms for $35 at Council

Just give composting a try ... it’s commonsense stuff ... it’s really easy ... and the planet will be grateful.

Wanted – a sense of humus when composting

A. D. A. M.Creating the conditions for good composting

ALIVENESS: good composting relies on a healthy variety and population of micro-organisms & organisms. They will exist if you have provided the conditions below.

DIVERSITY: Aim to get a good carbon/nitrogen ratio with a variety of ingredients. Materials with a dense consistency and/or a high moisture content (such as green grass clippings) can often create anaerobic conditions. When composting these types of materials, it’s important to add bulking agents such as straw, leaves, and shredded cardboard to help increase air flow.

AERATION: To ensure an aerobic breakdown of its contents com-post should be turned regularly to avoid anaerobic pockets when there is poor air flow.

MOISTURE: A compost heap should be moist (not wet or dry) and ideally with the consistency of a wrung out sponge. Every liv-ing thing requires water – micro-organisms are no exception.


Your guide to sustainable living on the north coast 7Daniel Harper

Sustainable business integrates ecological concerns with social and economic ones. These three factors need to be ad-dressed in a holistic manner to achieve a truly sustainable busi-ness. What’s more, reducing the amount of resources needed to effectively run a business adds value to it. Sustainable work-place practices reduce running costs, increase productivity, improve customer perceptions and help the planet.

Following are some key points for achieving busi-nesses sustainability.

Economic• The world’s current

rate of consumption is unsustainable, as is the idea of continual global economic growth.

• ‘True cost economics’ needs to be fully embraced, allowing the environmental and social cost of products to be factored into their pricing.

• There needs to be a mecha-nism that allows the market to value the environment, a car-bon tax for instance. If we can give more worth to a forest as it stands as opposed to clearing it for crops/grazing then there is an economic incentive for protecting the environment.

Social• Be aware of the social

impacts of where products and services are sourced. How money is spent and which companies you support, is a very powerful tool. Support local businesses.

• Identify ways to improve and strengthen the relation-ship your business has with the local and broader community.

• Ensure fair pay and safe working conditions

for staff and suppliers. Encourag-ing equal oppor-tunity practices

when hir-ing staff.

• Have a designated

person who has the knowledge and

tools to ensure best practice in in your workplace.

Energy efficiencyReducing electricity use will

save your business money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global warming.

Most ways to reduce energy use will fall into two categories, behavioural change and retro-fitting. For instance, turning off

lights at night is behavioural, upgrading the lights to a more efficient type is retrofitting. When looking at retrofits, an important factor is the payback period, this is how long it will take to recoup the investment in new equipment with money saved by reduced electricity use.

In office settings, generally, the biggest areas of electricity use will be air conditioning, lighting and appliances (com-puters/printers etc). Consider getting a professional energy assessor to identify ways to reduce energy consumption.

Waste, water, transport

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Have a compost bin for organic food waste. Have recycle bins clearing signed. Buy products with recyclable and minimal packaging. Consider turning off your electric hot water system if hot water is used infrequent-ly. Put flow restrictors on taps and ensure they are not leak-ing. Get staff to carpool, walk or ride bikes to work. Minimise air travel.

Having a sustainable business not only makes good business sense but lets others know that you value the earth as well.

n Daniel Harper is the founder of Coolplanet energy assess-ment company.

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Your Sustainable Community8Victoria Cosford

Organic food is produced to a set of standards and principles concerning such issues as chemical pesticides/herbi-cides/insecticides; food additives; animal welfare and sustainability, those practices enabling the production of food with the least impact on the planet. Produced in an organic farming system without the use of synthetic chemicals or genetically modi-fied organisms, it emphasises a holistic farm management approach.

And yet there continue to be differ-ing views on the value of organic food, especially in relation to nutrition, with little evidence to suggest that it is nutritionally better for you than conventional food. Criticism is levelled at its cost, the fact that it has acquired a sheen of elitism by being significantly more expensive than con-ventional foodstuffs. A colleague recently forked out nearly $18 a kilo for two plums from a local health food store – plums were in season at the time – which is frank-ly outrageous, smacking of opportunism on the part of the storeholders who are clearly seeking to capitalise on the current celebration of all things organic. Then there is the insidious possibility that, the more popular organic farming becomes, the more it will inevitably come up against the same problems as other agribusiness-es in terms of mass production, transport, equipment used. Global organic produc-tion is expanding at the rate of 10 to 15 per cent a year, making it the fastest growing food sector.

Sweeping aside such considerations – and where would a movement be anyway without its detractors? – the one true fact remains about organic food and organic farming, which is that its practices are much less harmful to the environ-ment. This, then, is its most compelling argument.

So, apart from the ever-growing avail-ability of farmers’ markets, where can you buy organic food locally? Health food shops are a good bet.

Increasingly, supermarkets are perceiv-ing the need to oblige demand and so you will find entire sections devoted to organic grocery lines. The newish SPAR in Byron Bay in particular has a very comprehensive selection.

Shoppers should, however, exercise caution. Due to its fashionability, the word ‘organic’ is often bandied about without evidence of the necessary certification. How do you know you are getting organic food? The only way is through organic certification, which means that not only has the product or produce been organi-cally grown but that it has been harvested, prepared and transported via systems and processes that guarantee it is not contami-nated by synthetic chemicals and that it is not irradiated.

The little roadside stalls operating on an honour system of payment should never be overlooked either – although best of all is your very own backyard, a garden of your own inception, care and cultivation. You can’t ‘shop’ more locally and organi-cally than that!

n Victoria Cosford is a journalist and food writer for The Echo and author of Amore And Amoretti (Wakefield Press), a memoir of cuisine and romance in Tuscany.

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Cheers

Buying locally organically the way to go

Local farmers marketsTuesday – New Brighton Oval, 8am-11am, www.newbrightonfarmers-market.org.auThursday – Byron Bay Butler Street Reserve, 8am-11am www.byronfarmers-market.com.auFriday – Mullumbimby showgrounds off Main Arm Road, 7am-11amSaturday – Bangalow, behind the hotel, 8am-11amSaturday – Uki, 8am-11am


Your guide to sustainable living on the north coast 9 Victoria Cosford

When founder and president of Slow Food International Carlo Petrini visited Australia in Octo-ber last year, his chief message was that we must build a frater-nity of food, to have a ‘‘holistic vision of gastronomy’.

It was in 1989 that he con-ceived the idea of the Slow Food Movement, with the aim of not only countering fast food global domination but also of promoting local pro-duction and environmentally responsible farming practices. Today it counts more than 100,000 members in 130 coun-tries of the world, comprising people from all walks of life: home cooks and chefs, caterers and students, winemakers and scientists, farmers and families – in short, anyone who is interested in supporting food traditions and local growers.

In Petrini’s presentation at the Sydney Opera House he spoke about the fact that ‘if we destroy the planet’s diversity we destroy our health...’

‘We are the environment’, he continued, ‘sometimes we feel that we are superior, but after some years we actually go back to earth, all of us, so we are the environment... With local production, eating local food, and by helping each other – producers and co-producers – we will be able to rebuild that

which we have destroyed. In this way we can also rebuild biodiversity. We need to work at two levels – that is, among co-producers (consumers), paying more for local food, and among politicians, who must be far-sighted and preserve this land, not build on it and transform it with cement...’

Slow Food Australia – Slow Food’s first national association in the southern hemisphere – has 42 convivia, or branches, all coordinated by volunteers. Across the country their job is to foster community aware-ness and celebrate and cham-pion food that is good, clean and fair; to work with artisan producers to market their foods; to help school com-munities to develop kitchen gardens; to promote food traditions and knowledge. In addition they organise tasting workshops and events through which members can learn about the source of food, farm-ing methods and the impor-

tance of food sustainability for themselves and for the planet.

The Slow Food Movement is founded upon the belief that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure and conse-quently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture to make this pleasure possible: a recog-nition of the strong connec-tions between plate and plan-et. We are co-producers rather than consumers because, by being informed about how our food is produced and by actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of – and a partner in – the production process.

Writer A A Gill says that ‘the Slow Food Movement... speak(s) to a terrible yearn-ing of urban folk, people who feel the timing of their lives has been taken out of their control, who are being forced to run faster and faster by the collective aspiration and fear of others...’ He says that

‘there is something immensely attractive about slowness. We think of those lunches that turn into tea and then cocktails. Of flipping the sign on the shop door and taking an hour on the couch. Everything you think of with slowness comes with an accompaniment of sybaritism...’

Sybaritism and pleasure are, finally, less important than the substantial need to safeguard our earth for the little time we are allowed our small plot upon it. We’re losing farmers’ knowledge’, Petrini said in his address, ‘and small farmers are disappearing... [but] we can really make this change. We can support farmers’ markets. We can defend food and build school gardens. We can create and support communities and work with them. Ask for more information so we can learn where food comes from and how it is made. This way we’ll be able to give value back to food... We have never talked about food so much before and now food is eating us.’

n Anyone interested in joining the Byron Bay convivium of the Slow Food Movement and the various sybaritic, educational food-related events through-out the year should contact either Acting Leader Victoria Cosford on 0400 189 818 or co-ordinaire extraordinaire Janene Jervis on 0407 855 022.

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Rescuing ourselves from speedy eating



Story & photo Eve Jeffery

In days of yore, incandescent was a word used for romantic poetry and floral descriptions of a lady love. In 2010 it is those dirty, nasty thingies that some folk still have planted in their kitchen ceiling. I don’t know anyone who buys the older style of globes any more, the newer, energy efficient com-pact fluorescent lamp (CFL) has now all but replaced its predecessor.

The early models looked like something from Robot Central but recent incarnations are more aesthetically pleasing. The main issue that has arisen from the succession of CFLs is that, like all fluorescent lamps, they contain small amounts of mercury as a vapour inside the glass tubing.

The Environment Protec-tion and Heritage Council (EPHC), has been investigat-ing the issues associated with the end-of-life management for CFLs and other mercury-containing lamps. In May 2009, the EPHC announced its support for FluoroCycle, a voluntary partnership between government and industry to increase recycling of mercury containing lamps. This is OK for big business and highlights the need for some sort of protocol but it doesn’t help ma and pa

much. Currently, the Byron Shire Council does not recycle fluorescent lamps.

Another device the disposal of which must be explored and the use of which we have adopted as our badge of honour in the quest for sustain-ability is the shopping bag. While everyone will agree that the only sensible move is away from the plastic grocery bag, its substitute mustn’t be a flippant choice on the run. It has to be remembered that in the long term, reusable bags take more time, energy and resources

to produce and unless they are used many times over you are defeating the purpose of having them in the first place. It is estimated that about 100 trips to the supermarket will see each bag in the clear, but only if the bag makes it to the checkout and isn’t left in the boot of the car or on the kitch-en bench. Probably the best receptacle for your shopping is a trolley just like Nana used to have – a well maintained gro-cery buggy could last years and years and then you could sell it on eBay as a collectable!

There is a tonne of great earth savers to help the planet. Some have become so much part of our life that we forget we are helping out, for exam-ple, the dual flush toilet. It has become so much a part of our daily ablutions that we really don’t think about it much any more. But how much do we think about the gadgets we use?

I visited a small village in the heart of Mullumbimby last week to ask the locals about their eco gadgetry. The average ‘Echo’ villager has CFLs, solar

water and water saving shower roses up the wazoo and most feel the saving items do the right job, although the mercury question did arise.

Most felt their big energy waster was their heating and believed that their biggest energy saver was solar water, instant gas water and heating and one pair of legs that always walked to the shops. Most of the Echo residents had a petrol car as did each driving member of the family, though the win-ner in the car stakes shared a hybrid with her hubby.

About half of those polled rode a bike or wished for a bike and most said they would love solar power.

The individual sins that they would not relinquish were cars, fridges, dishwashers, hair straighteners and one battery-powered vibrator. The collective sins were not turning power off at the wall and to-tally, like, forgetting Earth Hour.

The majority of staffers use a fuel powered mower but only one used the sprinkler to encourage the lawn. There was about 50 er cent wood fire users, few had electric heating and cooling going for the softer option of a fan.

Surprisingly there was only one mention of environmen-tally sound, star rated white goods (another given maybe?)

and only a small percentage used an extra fridge or freezer..

There are plenty of ways to save the planet. Surfing the net is the easiest way to find cool enviro gadgets (maybe the idea of global warming adds a whole new dimension to the word ‘cool’). I found a self heating shower, the Ecoflap letterbox draught stopper, the The Metalcell portable battery which generates energy for electronics from salt water or urine (ieew), a hand held portable espresso maker and just what I always wanted: an energy recycling prosthetic foot.

If you want to save energy and the planet, and sometimes money as well, you can find something somewhere to do the job, but the best energy saving idea came from one of the Echo pollees. ‘A brain,’ she said. ‘It’s all very good to have all these water and power saving devices, but being con-scious of what you are using is important. If everyone had very limited tank water they would soon remember to turn the frigging tap off.’

Hear, hear.For more gadget ideas visit

www.envirogadget.com.

n Eve Jeffery is an Echo journal-ist, photographer and sports writer.

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Go go gadget shopping doesn’t offer all the answers

Carmel Chetcuti contemplates a CFL from atop her Toyota Prius.



Kel Raison

The ethical perversion of the fashion industry is noticeable even in Byron with the increase in chain stores stocking cheap, badly made clothes designed to last no longer than the latest trend produced in abhorrent working conditions in Asian factories. Our throw away cul-ture is leading top designers to release multiple lines per sea-

son to satisfy fickle consumers who want it all first, fast and for less time, and while designer labels may last longer than the cheap chain store variety fash-ion, it’s the ripple effect and the volume of clothing produced that is creating the problem.

Landfill is at the top of the list when it comes to fashion sustainability faux pas. A 2006 study published by the University of Cambridge, Well

dressed? The present and future sustainability of clothing and textiles in the United Kingdom, revealed that UK residents purchase 35kg of clothing and send 30kg to landfill per capita each year. While these figures are not Australian they serve as a useful comparison to our developed society.

Once fashion items reach landfill, synthetic fabrics such as nylon take 30-40 years to biodegrade, whereas cot-ton rags take only one to five months. This however seems to be the only thing conventional cotton has going for it in terms of sustainability.

Previously environmental impact was measured only in the production phase of the fashion industry, with synthetic fibres such as polyester faring badly in the sustainability stakes due to emission levels. Now sustainability is measured using a lifecycle approach, which takes into consideration

the entire life of the garment from farming or production through to care of the garment and eventual disposal.

The energy needs of a cotton T-shirt during the use phase of its lifecycle accounts for 60 per cent of its entire energy consumption assum-ing it is washed, tumble dried and ironed 25 times in its life. Conversely, a viscose blouse requires much less energy dur-ing the use phase – only 14 per cent of its total requirements assuming it is line-dried and not ironed – but has double the energy requirements of cotton when producing the material.

Comparing the combined material, production and trans-portation lifecycle phases, the cotton-shirt and the viscose blouse both used the same amount of energy (distributed differently) over the three phases and had the same waste output.

Cotton farming, including

organic cotton which currently makes up only one per cent of the cotton market, uses copious amounts of water according to another UK report. ‘In some cases over ten tonnes of water are used to grow enough cot-ton to make one pair of jeans.’

The Aral Sea in Central Asia, once the fourth largest inland body of water, is now reduced to 15 per cent capacity as a result of cotton farming.

Conventional cotton falls further down sustainability rankings when chemical toxic-ity is included in the equation, with high levels of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth regulators and defoliants (chemical products used to remove leaves) used in conven-tional farming practices. Glo-bally, cotton farming accounts for 16 per cent of insecticide use and the chemicals used are so toxic that there have been many cases of acute pesticide poisoning to cotton farmers, some resulting in death.

Dyeing of materials accounts for most of the chemicals released into waste water from the fashion industry that are

not related to cotton farming. The chemicals are non-biode-gradable and cause toxicity in factory workers, with some dyes being linked to blad-der cancer which is the most common type of cancer in the clothing production workforce.

So if cotton is such high maintenance in farming and garment care, and production of synthetics is also sustainably problematic, then it seems using hemp as a natural fibre alterna-tive is a no-brainer. The Well Dressed report acknowledges that: ‘Hemp is four times stronger than cotton, twice as resistant to abrasion, and more resistant to mildew, soiling, shrinkage and fading in the sun. In addition, hemp plants need little irrigation and significantly less pesticide or other chemicals.’

Other natural fibres derived from wood and corn are also surfacing, however this still doesn’t address the volume of land fill generated by the fashion industry. The only thing that will make a difference is a change in consumer behaviour.

n Kel Raison is a freelance writer.

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Feral fashionistas seek out sustainable clothing

It comes down to the three Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle.

1. Buy fewer clothes. 2. Recycle the ones you

have. Repair damaged clothes and take them to Vinnies when you’ve finished with them.

3. Buy secondhand clothes or arrange clothes swaps with friends.

4. Hire clothing that is for one-off use, such as wedding attire.

5. Wash in cold water with detergents containing less than five percent phosphates. Wash clothes less often and

don’t tumble dry or iron (sorry mum).

6. If you must buy new clothes, buy ones that are made to last and choose the most sustainable fabric that you can.

7. Research before you purchase. Studies have shown that the fashion industry is developing more sustainable approaches due to consumer pressure and some organisa-tions are more sensitive than others. Check out Deeper Luxury Report produced by the World Wildlife Fund avail-able online.

So, what can we do?

Many of the pieces at the Shearwater school Wearable Arts event used recycled materials. Photo Jeff Dawson.



Luis Feliu

Tweed Shire Council is involved in a range of programs and initiatives promoting sustain-ability. Its most recent one, the solar neighbourhood pro-gram, kicking off in July, gives residents the chance to buy a quality solar power system for a reduced price.

It has proved very popular, according to council’s sustain-ability officer Dan Walton, who says his phone has been

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A first for regional NSW, the program aims to boost the number of solar power systems

in the local community, fol-lowing the success of a similar program being run on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Mr Walton said the alliance

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Solar neighbourhood program –

Tweed Shire Council’s sustainability officer Dan Walton takes a bike ride around upper Main Street, Murwillumbah, to check out the latest initiatives by residents in the Tweed’s first ‘sus-tainable street’. Residents in the street last year, with council and state government help, launched a scheme to make their neighbourhood more sustainable by planting footpath street trees, swapping home-grown foods and generally aiming at making their homes more environmentally friendly through power and water saving measures. Photo Jeff Dawson


Your guide to sustainable living on the north coast 13between Council and a suit-ably qualified solar installer would provide Tweed property owners with a simple way of reducing energy costs and en-vironmental footprint through the application of renewable energy technology.

Solar neighbourhood programs are a successful way of cutting the cost of solar power systems as costs are sig-nificantly reduced when large numbers of installations are arranged in the same area.

Under the program, partici-pating householders will:

• Generate up to $1642 worth of electricity a year (based on a feed-in tariff of $0.60 per kilo-watt and a nine panel, 1.5kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system);

• Recoup their financial out-lay in less than three years;

• Take advantage of govern-ment incentives; and

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.4 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Mr Walton says the Solar Neighbourhood Program is be-ing developed to make it easy for people to get solar power on their home or business.

‘Take-up rates of green tech-nologies in the local commu-nity increase significantly when Council facilitates the process,’ he said.

This was demonstrated between January 2007 and De-cember 2008 when more than

50 per cent of shire households had energy and water saving devices installed through a partnership between Council and Fieldforce Pty Ltd. In other local government areas where Fieldforce offered their service without Council support, the take-up rate was around 30 per cent of households.

Council aims to launch the program in July following a tender process to choose the company which will deliver the service to customers.

The Alliance will run for 12 months or 200 installations, whichever comes first.

Council is currently seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified solar photo-voltaic installers to partner with Council to deliver the Tweed Solar Neighbourhood Program.

Tender details are available at www.tweed.nsw.gov.au/tender.

n Luis Feliu is editor of The Tweed Shire Echo

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Northern Rivers CarpoolSix Northern Rivers councils have teamed up to create Northern Rivers Carpool, a free on-line service for commuters in the region. With nearly 500 members so far, visit www.nrcarpool.org to register and link up with someone travelling in your direction.

Northern Rivers Food LinksNorthern Rivers Food Links is a project that aims to localise the regional food supply in response to climate change and anticipated long term oil supply shortages (Peak Oil). Northern Rivers Food Links is a collaboration of Ballina, Byron, Clarence, Kyogle, Richmond Valley and Tweed Councils, Rous Water and the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW). Community-based organisations interested in lo-cal food production are invited to apply for up to $50,000 in funding under the Food Links Project, which is seeking grass-roots, food-related initiatives in each local government area for a ‘Village Showcase’. These could include projects such as community gardens, street orchards and farmers markets. A sum of $50,000 has been

allocated from the Northern Rivers Food Links budget for a community project in the Tweed. For an information kit, phone 02 6686 3972, or email [email protected] The closing date for e funding applications is June 30.

Northern Rivers Sustainable StreetsAn initiative of Tweed and By-ron Shire Councils to strength-en community, conserve non-renewable resources and rehabilitate local ecosystems through a series of workshops and community activities. Households in combined street efforts are participating at Murwillumbah, Mullumbimby, Uki, Cabarita and South Golden Beach.

The Byron Shire Food Production on Public Land Projectrepresents an innovative trial in demonstrating the compat-ibility of managing urban food production on Council-man-aged, public open space. The circular garden bed located around Byron Shire Council Chambers in Mullumbimby has been chosen as the area in which to conduct the trial due to its profile, visibility, access, soil condition and contained

nature. The site will serve as a sustainability education model to promote sustainable living.

What can you do?Here are some tips for reducing your environmental impact at home.

• Switch to Green Power: GreenPower is electricity from renewable energy sources like wind and solar instead of coal. Almost all electricity companies offer the choice of GreenPower - for a list see www.greenelectricitywatch.org.au

• Switch off stand-by power: Standby power is the electric-ity consumed by an appliance when it’s not performing its primary function. Nearly 11 per cent of Australian residential electricity use is attributable to standby power. So when you’ve finished using your TV, com-puter or microwave switch the unit off completely (preferably at the wall).

• Install dual-flush toilets: The toilet is one of the biggest water users in the house, using on average 38,000 litres a year.

For more information on sus-tainability initiatives visit www.tweed.nsw.gov.au/sustainability or www.byron.nsw.gov.au/sustainability

Sustainability initiatives on offer across Tweed and Byron Shires


Your Sustainable Community14Giovanni Ebono

Listen to any politician, government scientist or other mining industry representative talking about electricity and you will eventually hear the term ‘base-load’. Chances are it will be used to justify the expanded extraction of mineral resources, or to damn renewable resources. The classic line is, ‘Wind is fine for supplementing our electricity but it is too unreliable to supply the baseload.’

Baseload sounds big and strong, like one of the four elephants holding up the pre-Copernican world and, on close inspection, it has just about as much credibility.

The term really means the minimum amount of electricity that we use at any one time. When we are asleep, with our television sets off and our air-conditioning units turned down low, our cities hum along quietly using a minimum amount of electricity. This minimum consumption level, or baseload, is the amount of electricity that always has to be available.

If that baseload (or demand) is not met, so the argument goes, then society would collapse: life support machines would stop working, clocks would set

themselves back to midnight 01:01:01 and start flashing red; a clear indicator that civilisation as we know it has come to an end.

To avoid that horrific catastrophe, we absolutely must open new coal mines, build new coal-fired power stations and start generating electricity from Plutonium.

It is critical not only that you understand what is wrong with this argument but that you convince your relatives, colleagues and aquaintances. It is all very well to forgive them for not knowing any better, but if they vote out of ignorance for the mine that is going to destroy your children’s future, that is partly your fault.

Pimp your baseThe first myth to be

dispensed with is that the current baseload is actually a true minimum. In fact, it has been manipulated over many years to be artificially high for economic reasons. In the fifties, public utilities began to package the electricity they produced at night as a new product, ‘off-peak power’, and sell it cheaply. It saved them the cost of powering down and powering up their power stations and made them heaps of money.

Until those pesky solar models came along, domestic hot water services soaked up the bulk of this off-peak power, heating water at night

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so people could enjoy a hot shower in the morning. The modern switchboard in most homes have an off-peak switch that the power company can

turn on by sending a special pulse down the power line. That way the power company can sell you electricity you don’t know you’re buying

when they have some to spare.Another customer of cheap

off-peak electricity is hydro-electricity power companies. They use it to pump water up-hill overnight so they can let it run down again the next day and generate higher priced, peak-load electricity at a profit. About forty per cent of the energy is wasted but the price difference is sufficient to make it worthwhile.

Lie about sizeThe second myth to be

dispensed with is that big is beautiful. To be sure there are commercial advantages for the owners of very large things in the form of reduced overheads but, from a technical point of view, many small things are of-

ten much more powerful, more flexible and more resilient.

The world’s computer manufacturers resisted the personal computer revolution and media owners ignored the internet revolution to their own detriment. Now, an enormous network of small computers delivers many times the computing power than the older centralised networks ever could. The media contributions of millions of users holding those computers is much richer and more flexible than anything owned by a handful of mega-rich owners ever could be.

In the same way, an indi-vidual wind farm may be more dependent on the weather than a cluster of steam genera-tors burning coal or capturing the heat from fissile Plutonium, but a network of wind genera-tors in different locations in combination with solar thermal plants is not.

Power of the edgeThere is a final, extremely

important point to make about the distributed generation of electricity from a wide range of sources. The contributions of local, micro-generators – solar panels on rooftops, for example – is a totally new phenomenon that will create a steady supply of electricity when we need it most, during the day. Not only that, it will be

generated near to where it is used, reducing the cost of the distribution network.

Just as the IBMs of the world could not see the PC revolu-tion coming and the Sonys, TimeWarners and BMGs of the world have yet to grapple with the Internet, so will the electric-ity utilities learn the hard way that a distributed network will

beat a centralised monolith every time.

It seems to be the lesson of our time.

n Giovanni Ebono is a publish-er and author who has edited and written many books about sustainable living. Links to his recent projects are available at www.ebono.org.

the baseload myth about power generation

• Uninsulated ceilings can waste 35 per cent of your winter heating.

• For every old style incan-descent globe you replace with a compact fluorescent light you can save about $40 in electricity costs.

• A large screen television turned on for 6 hours a day can generate half a tonne of greenhouse gas a year.

• Many appliances use elec-

tricity even when they appear to be turned off. Switch them off at the power point to save energy.

– From www.livinggreener.gov.au/be-informed/saving-energy

Did you know?


Your Sustainable Community16The vehicle tracker applica-tion on my phone-disc beeps a warning as a shiny green e-car pulls across six cycle lanes to the curb where I am standing. The mechanical whoosh of the door sliding open sounds an invita-tion that I accept, folding the silky pleats of my bamboo dress into my lap and taking my seat. As I return the sleepy greetings of my carpool companions I inhale, enjoying the sweet scent exuding from the newness of the hemp fibre interior of Rick Shaw’s recently upgraded car. I close my eyes as we turn onto the electric car lane and let the gentle rhythm of the electro

magnetic recharge strips lull me into a pleasant daydream about my dazzling driver…

Lani Summers

It could happen. Some of it is already happening. South Korea is onto the rather expen-sive recharge strips, and many countries are turning car lanes over to cyclists. Last month Austrian Telekom announced a plan to turn redundant phone boxes into electric car recharge stations. Some of the earlier Ford cars were made with hemp, so we definitely have the technologies, perhaps too many. Town planners and government departments glo-bally are showing trepidation, perplexed about which way to go, how to prepare infrastruc-ture for speedily superseded and expensive systems.

This biosphere is not an entirely closed loop system; therefore nothing on this planet is truly infinitely sustain-able. However in relation to transport, we look to processes which smoothly transition us away from fossil fuels, re-duce harmful emissions and minimise air, noise, water and land pollution. We also want efficiency and ease, lest our lifestyle get too inconvenienced by adaptation.

There is no one size fits all solution, nor should there be. Systems thinkers know that diversity brings a robust quality. That is diversity and simplicity. The most readily available simple and sustain-able transport available to the majority, are of course our own two legs, add some wheels and pedestrian power is closely fol-lowed by skates, skateboards and bicycles. They all require minimal outlay, minimum maintenance, and the byprod-uct is improved physical health from the exerted effort, and improved community relations from the ‘pedestrian effect’.

For low tech energy solu-tions we can look to the third world. They use horsepower of the hoofed variety, beasts

of burden for transportation, labour, food then fabric. Me-chanical horsepower too, mo-torbikes and mopeds balance entire families and livestock in ways that defy physics, and our western road laws. These are definitely options that do not necessarily cater to many current western lifestyles.

As far as efficiency goes, bulk transport uses the least embodied energy per unit moved. Before the availability of cheap oil, we relied on ports and rail networks to move vast amounts of people or products over varying distances. These technologies exist greener than ever before. Solar, wind, hydro and many other ‘free’ and avail-able energies, can be captured to power huge vessels over land and sea. But free energy doesn’t line the wallets of big industry, so as much invention occurs in designing inbuilt redundancy in parts, or an ongoing service provision dependency to fulfill the economic versus environment dilemma.

Bio-fuel for cars has been all but given the

boot at least in the long term. The math on land mass required for ethanol produc-tion would leave us without room for adequate food crops. Crops can contribute more efficiently to bio-electricity pro-duction than bio-fuels. There are so many clean, green ways to make electric vehicles move, that fuel based cars are sure to become superfluous.

While some countries move forward, Australians are feel-ing the push and pull effect between federal, state and local government funding and policy. As Rudd hits the pause button on sustainabil-

ity and the State leaves our priceless rail infrastructure to decompose, the Byron Shire council is trying to fulfill local demand for green transport. The ongoing construction of a labyrinth of cycle-ways is de-signed to connect the Shire as described in the Bike Strategy and Action Plan adopted in 2008 and recharge stations for electric vehicles are whispered concepts remaining a vision for the future.

More recently, Byron Shire has collaborated with other councils of the Northern Rivers region to offer residents a web based carpooling service. Cur-rently it is mostly Byron Shire residents utilising the service, and more often to commute to work and similarly regular trips. Memberships need to hit a critical mass, for the service to work effectively for casual and one off trips. I am still waiting

for a lift to the airport!

Participants can register for membership as a driver, pas-senger or both by going to the website www.nrcarpool.org. There are designated priority parking spaces for Northern Rivers carpool members and the first eight people to regis-ter with the carpool service and call Graeme Williams at council (6626 7305), can win a car-pooler pack which includes a $25 fuel voucher, travel cup and other goodies. Be sure to read the websites etiquette page, it can prevent potential embar-rassment from car pool faux pas such as excessive cologne wearing.

n Lani Summers is a freelance writer.

Pictured, the Aptera, one of the new breed of electric cars – see www.aptera.com.

PM

Limitedstockbe

quick!

As part of the Home Saver Rebates, NSW homeowners may be eligible for the $200 NSW Government 4-Star Toilet Rebate.To qualify for the rebate, simply purchase a new dual flush toilet

suite with a WELS rating of 4 stars or higher and have it installed by a licenced plumber between 15 January 2010 and 30 June 2011.For more information, as well as terms and conditions,

visit www.environment.nsw.gov.au/rebates

UPGRADE YOUR SINGLE FLUSH TOILET AND GET A

$200 REBATE!Single flush toilets are one of the biggest users of water in NSW homes, using 12 litres of water per flush.

A modern dual flush toilet can reduce this to 4.5 litres per flush, saving around 25,000 litres of drinking water per household each year.

Moving lightly through the landscape

• Reduce braking and accel-erating as they use the most fuel. Drive smoothly and with enough distance from the car in front to reduce unnecessary stopping and starting.

• Run your engine between around 1,500 and 2,500 rpm (lower for diesel engines) to improve your fuel efficiency.

• If you are in a traffic jam, turn the car off. Restarting uses less petrol than idling.

• Use air conditioners only

when needed. Air condition-ers make you use a lot of extra fuel.

• Don’t speed – not only is it dangerous it also burns fuel at a faster rate.

– From www.livinggreener.gov.au

Drive your car more efficiently


Your guide to sustainable living on the north coast 17Story & photo Eve Jeffery

Katrina Shields has many years experience and qualifications in environmental sustainability, practically and theoretically and in recent times she has been sharing her knowledge in the Byron Shire.

Last year Katrina coordinated a team for a large research project to make recommenda-tions on the National Training Package in Retail and Horti-culture – she ran some pilot training for people working in those industries locally. There is recognition from the top of the bureaucracy that things need to change so they looked to a place like Byron Shire for ideas of how this might happen on the ground.

Katrina is the Sustainability Officer at the Byron Region Community College. Each term Katrina oversees around 20 different sustainability related courses at the college and she says participants are enjoying the workshops.

‘We are getting great feedback from students,’ says Katrina. ‘People are finding courses very inspiring and the Byron Shire Council has helped us keep them very affordable. Some of them are general interest courses and some are funded, accredited, certificate courses such as the recent

Sustainable Land Use course and units on Water, Weather and Organic Pest Control.’

She recently wrote a teach-er’s resource manual called ‘Eden at Home’ which looks at teaching backyard food grow-ing. ‘The Health department asked us to do this book and is now being picked up by other

colleges.’Katrina says the college has

a terrific team of passionate tutors who really know how to walk their talk. She says students get out in the field and into people’s backyards as much as possible but it is getting back inside that she is really excited about at present.

‘We are moving back to our totally renovated and expand-ed building with some state of the art energy efficiency features such as the huge 30Kw of solar panels,’ she says. ‘We were given a one-off economic stimulus fund payment from the teaching and learning capital fund. The great new training spaces, the improved sustainability features and new display spaces will support our Living and Working sustainably programs as well as generating a lot of power to put back into the grid.’

Courses at the college are always packed to the rafters, the sustainability program is a popular one that rarely has spaces left over. There is a huge variety of sustainable practices to learn including a NSW De-partment of Education funded certificate course that covers the process of assessing soil health and land requirements to improve land under produc-tion in Sustainable Land Use.

If you want to save the earth’s resources you can learn how to calculate your “wet footprint” in the Water for Life workshop and you will also find that sometimes getting some exposure to sun is a good thing – learn about Solar Technology and the many ways you can incorporate the sun’s 100 per cent, ever reliable, GST-free gift

into your household’s economy during the Solar Works day.

For animal lovers, you can dis-cover some of the creatures you share the shire with when you enter the the fascinating world of native butterflies, dragonflies and other wonderful creatures in Native Butterflies.

Katrina says she gets to meet a lot of great people and a lot

of the positive changes that are happening. ‘Often taking steps to lower our impact also en-riches our life. I am passionate, particularly about improving our local organic food supply, which would go a long way to lowering our carbon footprint and improving food security. I know together we can make a difference.’

A degree in Environmental, Marine or Forest Science could open up many career paths, especially now. Around the world new jobs are being created

in the ‘green collar economy’ in response to climate change and the need for renewable energy and sustainable business practices. Our fl exible

distance education can help you balance study and work, life and family to pursue a sustainable career that could satisfy your personal and fi nancial

ambitions. The natural choice is Southern Cross University.

Apply now for mid-year. Visit scu.edu.au/enviroscience

ON CAMPUS AND BY DISTANCE EDUCATION

It’s not only the environment

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Educator Katrina Shields is keen about making a difference


Your Sustainable Community18Victoria Cosford

I spent the loveliest couple of hours in the company of Jude and Michel Fanton, of the Seed Savers Network. Invited at lunchtime I had not, however, expected the generosity of lunch served to a complete stranger – and yet after an introductory tour of the front garden there we were – daughter, son-in-law and two little grandchildren included – sitting around a long table in the shade outside, eating soup (mushroom and chicory), duck pate on spelt bread, risotto and salad. Just about everything, of course, had been foraged from the acre of lush abundant gardens which spread before and around us.

There was no formality or, to be sure, any interview in the strict sense. Pale pretty Jude and intense, humorous Michel either talked over each other or took turns to describe what they do, where they had been, what they love. And so in between hearing about trips to countries like Africa and India I find out about the wild mushrooms they pick and eat; the 1200 pecan nuts they discovered fallen from a huge tree hanging over a public lane which, when they went back, had been inexplicably chopped down; the breadfruit ice cream

Jude had made using soya milk and bananas; the two olive trees out the front they must begin to harvest.

They established the Seed Savers Network in 1986 in order to conserve local varieties of food plant. The skill of saving seeds was being lost and they perceived the need to resuscitate and rejuvenate it to prevent valuable varieties dis-appearing forever. ‘We started to revive backyard agriculture’, Michel told me, ‘to dig out those traditional varieties suit-able for home-growing.’ They were encouraged greatly, in the early stages, by the founder of permaculture in Australia, Bill Mollison ; a national request by them for seed from tradi-tional varieties met with such an overwhelming response

that they were required to set up a register and a seed bank. ‘Over 21 years’, Michel said, ‘we’ve been sent 8000 samples of seeds from the public. So it’s not like we’re short on diversity!’

There are now 85 local seed networks around the country and the operation has been decentralised, with local seed networks exchanging varie-ties, ‘reviving old traditions for new gardeners’; and giving out cuttings. In addition Jude and Michel ‘work a lot overseas, increasing the strategic alliance with groups of people...we’re always doing new things.’ For many years they taught – Jude is an ex-teacher of social sci-ences, history and literature – teaching in the footsteps of Bill Mollison Permaculture

Design Courses in nine coun-tries, and always including a strong biodiversity and seed production component. They have written countless articles for newspapers, journals and magazines and made appear-ances at conferences and on radio shows; their gardens have been photographed and filmed as a thriving example of permaculture.

Increasingly the Fantons are relying on modern technol-ogy to get the word out – their well-designed website includes a regularly updated blog – but ‘we need more alliance with younger people’, Michel told me, ‘We need troubleshoot-ers in social networking to help us on to the next level or breakthrough...We want to sprout many more roots around the world – we’re like the grandparents coming in on this movement!’

He is also adamant that eve-ryone become involved, saying that ‘it’s not just good enough to buy local, you should grow local. You should grow peren-nials. Save your own seeds and exchange them with other people: that way you can see the full cycle... Learn how to harvest, to use the garden, to be a forager...’

n See more at www. seedsavers.net.

Village Showcase Project Funding Information WorkshopsVillage Showcase Projects are an opportunity for a collective community approach to improving the local food chain system, providing sustainable health, economic and environmental benefits for all.

Applications are now open for Village Showcase Project funding of $50,000 per Local Government Area. Contact Northern Rivers Food Links for an Expression of Interest proforma and application kit

You are also invited to attend Information Workshops being held across the Region on the following days.

Mon 7 June Coolamon Cultural Centre 2pm – 4pm 3-5 Tumbulgan Road MURWILLUMBAH

Tues 8 June Ballina Community Services Centre 5:30pm – 7:30pm Cnr Moon Street & Bangalow Road BALLINA

Wed 9 June Richmond Valley Council Chambers 10am – 12pm Cnr Walker Street & Graham Place CASINO

Wed 9 June Lismore Workers Club 4:30pm – 6:30pm 231 Keen Street LISMORE

Fri 11 June Maclean Services Club 2pm – 4pm 36 - 38 River Street MACLEAN

Contact information Email to [email protected] Attention: Village Showcase EOI. Alternatively contact by phone 02 6686 3972. Find out more about the Northern Rivers Food Links Project at www.northernriversfoodlinks.com.au

When you register for the Mullum walk & Run event you can also join Council at the event to

show you care and do your bit to help.Pledge to save some water at your house by

doing some simple actions. Donate to Water Aid Australia and win some great prizes (rainwater

tank, water kits etc)

For more info go tohttp://www.byron.nsw.gov.au/water-education

or contact Jude Mason on 6626 7077

When you register for the Mullum walk & Run event you can also join Council at the event to show you care and do your bit to help.

Pledge to save some water at your house by doing some simple actions. Donate to Water Aid Australia and win some great prizes

(rainwater tank, water kits etc)

For more info go tohttp://www.byron.nsw.gov.au/water-education

or contact Jude Mason on 6626 7077

WORLDEnvironment Day 2010International year of biodiversity

Sunday June 6, 10am to 3pmKnox Park, Murwillumbah

LIVE MUSICMurray Kyle withSOULARSONIC

and L’il FiChildren’s Tent andschool kids art space by Caldera Art

WORKSHOPS GUEST SPEAKERSi n fo rmat ion

stallsSUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS

community art by Planet eARTh

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BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Fantons are foragers for future generations

Jude and Michel Fanton in their garden. Photo Jeff Dawson


Your guide to sustainable living on the north coast 19Story & photo Eve Jeffery

Helena Norberg-Hodge is known around the globe as someone trying to help save it. An analyst of the impact of the global economy on cultures and agriculture worldwide and a pioneer of the localisa-tion movement, Helena is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecol-ogy and Culture (ISEC), a group whose mission is to examine the root causes of the planet’s social and environmental crises, while promoting more sustainable and equitable pat-terns of living. ISEC oversees the workings of the Local Food program and Global to Local Outreach and the Ladakh Project.

Helena is probably best known for her association with Ladakh and its people. Also known as Little Tibet, Ladakh is a remote region on the Tibetan plateau which, until 1974, had remained mostly isolated from modern development. Helena and a documentary film crew went to the area a year after it was opened to foreigners and she has spent much time and energy since, trying to help the Ladakhis preserve their traditional culture, values and sustainability against the onslaught of western culture’s glamour and luxury and the

misguided perception that modern life’s rewards are infi-nite wealth and leisure.

Though she started the project over 30 years ago, Helena still spends up to a third of her time working on Ladakh issues and travels every year to the area for a couple of months to work with the indigenous organisations that she helped start there. ISEC also run a tourist education program with about 3000 visitors from around the world every year.

More recently, Helena has been working on yet another

project to promote sustain-ability, She has been producer, director and also in front of the camera for the film The Economics of Happiness’. She recently made a presentation at the famous Cooper Union Great Hall in New York where she was able preview the film. ‘At Cooper Union, my main presentation was a lecture on the Economics of Happiness and I showed an excerpt from the film. I made my presenta-tion in the Great Hall on the evening of the same day that President Obama had an-

nounced his plans for financial regulation. The audience was very high-powered and included the President of Coo-per Union as well as several trustees.’

The film describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions: an unholy alliance of governments and big business is pushing us ever closer to the brink. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies – and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to build a very differ-ent future.

Helena received interest from the Institute for Sustain-able Design at Cooper Union to look at collaborating with ISEC to promote localisation and sustainable development. She says they have had meetings to discuss the opportunities.

Helena believes that for the people of this planet to survive, they must work toward lo-calisation in their own lives on many levels. One a daily basis she would like to encourage people to take a two-pronged approach. Firstly by using education and information as activism and taking action at the local level.

‘Something people can do today is to pass along this article or any other writing, film, website that promotes

localisation. They could also make a point of buying from an independent small business, rather than a chain. Above all, it’s important to buy fresh local food, that comes from the region, rather than processed food from the other side of the world.’

Week to week, Helena would ask people to devote more

time than they usually would to informing themselves about why economic localisation is so important and perhaps look into joining a project in their local area that is promoting localisation.

Helena hopes that as we take care of the days and weeks, that the years will take care of themselves.

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Helena Norberg-Hodge sees localisation at the heart of survival

Documents

Your Sustainable Communities 2010