Community saves itself from ruin with ‘give it a go’ attitude

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Whilst the closure of a major employer in a small town can often be devastating for the community, a small town in northern Victoria has shown that it doesn’t have to be so. A recent ABC News article highlights the ‘can do’ attitude with which residents overcame the shock of 146 job losses and created the thriving farmer’s market and music scene which now define the town.

When the Heinz sauce factory in Girgarre closed down in 2012, residents were afraid it would mean the end of their small town. But instead of giving up, they knuckled down to come up with ways to generate funds for community projects themselves. Although many were dubious when Doug Gray, a member of the Girgarre Development Group (GDG), suggested the town should start its own farmers market, they decided to give it a go.

 

Starting with six stalls, the farmer’s market in Girgarre has gone from strength to strength and now has 150 stalls.

 

This has resulted in huge success for the community allowing them to self-fund maintenance for sport facilities, the local Country Fire Authority, the RSL and a community car for medical appointments.

Another heartening measure of their success is the fact that the local kindergarten, also saved by funds from the farmer’s market, will have a record intake this year.

Added to this, the town now has a thriving music scene thanks to the Girgarre Moosic Muster festival, which initially focused on people who had no musical experience but were keen to learn an instrument. Around 900 people have now gone through the workshop program and their monthly jam sessions attract musicians from all over northern Victoria. This has created a much wider community for the 190 people who actually live in the town.

Jan Winter, chair of the GDG, believes that this kind of solution is applicable to any small town.

 

“What they’ve got to do is search for the ideas that can help empower their own communities because nothing’s impossible, we’ve found that one out.”

 

Re-post ~ Tiny town of Girgarre in Victoria’s north shows ingenuity in the face of job losses by Peter Lusted for ABC News

Aussie solar company (em)powers rural farmers

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

An Aussie startup company, Village Infrastructure Angels (VIA), has launched a social enterprise project which leases solar set-ups to villagers in developing countries.

By providing rural communities with access to solar-powered lighting and phone charging capabilities, as well as shared agro-processing facilities, company founder and solar entrepreneur Stewart Craine hopes to cut dependence on fossil fuels, improve agricultural productivity and empower communities.

 

 

So far the project has proven to alleviate the time burden involved with food production, particularly for women, and open up possibilities for other paid employment. This has been achieved by leasing solar powered mills to communities to help them grind and de-hull grains. A mill shared between a group of families can turn what used to be a highly labour-intensive task into a five-minute doddle, improving agricultural productivity and freeing up time for other activities.

Introducing solar technology in these rural communities also decreases their reliance on fossil fuels as it provides an alternative to kerosene lamps and diesel-powered generators.

 

 

Craine, who also helped found the solar lighting group Barefoot Power,  has already attracted interest from investors for this new project.

 

“…pilot projects have so far proved that local teams could quickly generate sufficient revenue from a modest number of solar power projects in rural villages to cover their daily operating costs, and additional revenue which accumulates in the bank to repay investors.”

 

The company has achieved its pilot goal of reaching 1000 households and plans to reach 10,000 households by 2018 and a whopping 200,000 by 2020. This is in an effort to help more of the 1 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity.

Re-post ~ New Aussie solar start-up empowering rural farming villages by Sophie Vorrath in One Step Off the Grid

Fraser Island national park re-named in recognition of traditional ownership

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The area of national park which takes up most of Queensland’s Fraser Island has been re-named K’gari (pronounced ‘gurri’) in honour of the local Butchulla creation story.

The Butchulla were granted native title over Fraser Island in 2014 and have incorporated their three laws into new signs which advertise the new name at the island’s three barge landings.

 

The three laws of the Butchulla people are included on the new signs: “What is good for the land comes first; If you have plenty, you must share; Do not touch or take anything which does not belong to you.”

 

The rest of the the Great Sandy National Park on the mainland south of the island, will not have a name change.

Elder and Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation director Ms Bird emphasises the importance of this first step in the name change and the new signage:

 

“It’s important because everyone, especially the Butchulla people, when they go over there and they step onto K’gari, Fraser Island, and see our signs, they will know that this is our country.”

 

In the Butchulla people’s creation story, K’gari was a spirit princess who helped to create what is now known as Hervey Bay. Believing that land to be the most beautiful place ever created, K’gari asked to stay there and was transformed into the island, where she remains to this day.

 

K’gari/Fraser Island is famous for its miles of white-sand beaches and freshwater perched lakes.

 

Ms Bird continues her 30 year campaign to re-name the island as a whole. Although the Government designated K’gari as an ‘alternative name’ in 2011, many of the area’s traditional landowners would like to see the name given equal status with Fraser island, as has happened at Uluru/Ayer’s Rock.

Re-post ~ Fraser Island’s national park renamed K’gari, meaning paradise by Jess Lodge on ABC NEWS

Turnaround as Tamworth welcomes diversity

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

A recent photo essay in the Guardian tells the stories of several families who are newcomers to Tamworth. The article notes the turnaround in the community’s attitude towards outsiders. It also celebrates the work of Multicultural Tamworth, an organisation which has been instrumental in creating greater understanding and appreciation of diversity through ‘open and honest discussion’.

In 2006 Tamworth attracted national criticism by voting down a proposal to re-settle five Sudanese families who were fleeing from war and persecution. However, the Guardian’s photo essay tells a different and very refreshing story. What’s more, Eddie Whitham, the founder of Multicultural Tamworth ~ an organisation with the ethos of being good “neighbours to newcomers” ~ says the region is now welcoming and celebrating diversity.

“Tamworth is very much home, a great community.” Says third-generation Fijian Indian, Shalini Pratap who moved to Tamworth in 2003.

 

Nicole Li, an engineering surveyor, arrived with her husband and 9-year-old son in 2014 on a skilled migrants visa. ““Coming from Beijing, we love the quiet and less-stressful lifestyle. We feel very free.”

 

Deborah Manyang moved to Tamworth in 2015 after spending time in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. “It’s safe here,” she says. “We can’t hear guns or see soldiers. We’re happy. It’s a new future for our children, they are adapting well and the local people have been very helpful.”

 

Tamworth cavalcade

Multicultural Tamworth and immigrant families took part in Tamworth’s country music festival for the first time this year, reflecting the change in attitudes.

 

This year’s Australia Day marked the changing attitude to multiculturalism in Tamworth when 37 Tamworth residents became Australian citizens.

Eddie Witham is working to see this trend continue.

 

“We need to find a common ground. It’s not going to work if we have isolated people. We want to make our town work. The hope is that this will become a natural thing ~ that there will be no us and them.”

 

Re-post ~ ‘Neighbours to newcomers’ ~ portraits from Tamworth by Lisa Maree Williams in The Guardian Australia

Healthy soil, not large scale agriculture, is key to feeding the world

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

In a recent article in The Conversation, a professor from the University of Washington busts some myths about industrialised agriculture and presents his findings on worldwide regenerative farming practices, which suggest that ‘the key to sustaining highly productive agriculture lies in rebuilding healthy, fertile soil’.

 

Soil building practices, like no-till and composting, can build soil organic matter and improve soil fertility. Photo: David Montgomery,

A recent United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation report shows that, contrary to popular belief, over three-quarters of the world’s food production happens on small family farms. This is opposed to the large-scale industrialised ones which feed most of the developed world. Linked to this, Montgomery points out that large farms are not, in fact, likely to be more efficient than small ones:

 

“According to a 1992 agricultural census report, small, diversified farms produce more than twice as much food per acre than large farms do.”

 

Add in a 2015 meta-analysis which showed less than a 10% gap in food production between conventional industrialised farms and organic farms where cover crops were planted and crops were rotated to increase soil fertility. Combine it all with the fact that about a quarter of all food produced worldwide is never eaten, and it begins to seem like industrialised farming really isn’t necessary to meet food production needs after all.

Rapid and effective soil regeneration is possible and it is the key to ‘a stable and resilient agriculture’. The adoption of regenerative farming practices such as no-till methods, cover cropping and complex rotations, along with the deep understanding of the particular qualities of the land and socioeconomic environment made possible by small-scale farming, leads to the ability to use fewer inputs to produce higher yields.

In order to speed along the uptake of farming practices which focus on soil health, David Montgomery calls for system-scale research, demonstration farms and, perhaps most importantly, changes in agricultural policy and subsidies, to encourage farmers to adopt regenerative practices.

Read about Starfish’s work in this area:

Biochar For Sustainable Soils is a project which seeks to share knowledge and build capacity around using biochar-based organic amendments to improve soil quality.
The Living Classroom in Bingara is a visionary project working to turn the Town Common into a visually beautiful, working regenerative farm  as a centrepiece for education, research, tourist activities and functions.

Re-post ~ Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world by David R Montgomery in The Conversation

Rapid glacier melt changes course of major river in only four days

/0 Comments/in , , /by

In a strikingly visual demonstration of the effects of global warming, the Slims River in the Yukon area of Canada has almost disappeared overnight. Analysis of data collected by a team of scientists who documented the change shows that there is a 99.5% likelihood that this event was caused by post-industrial climate change due to human activities.

 

The Kaskawulsh River has a dramatically increased flow due to the extra water which has been diverted from the Slims River

The Kaskawulsh River, seen here near its headwaters, is running higher now thanks to the addition of water that used to flow into the Slims River. Photograph: Jim Best/University of Illinois

 

The Slims, which was previously around 3 metres deep and up to 150 metres wide, has been re-directed into the Kaskawulsh River by a period of intense glacier melting which caused an alternate channel to be carved into the ice and re-directed the river’s flow. This has resulted in a huge increase in water being carried to the Gulf of Alaska rather than into the Bering Sea. It has also left the Slims as a dried out dust bowl.

Although evidence of similar events has been detected in the distant past, this is the first instance of ‘river piracy’ to be documented in the modern era.

There have been knock-on effects for local ecosystems including Alsek River, which is part of a UNESCO World Heritage region and is now receiving significantly increased flow from the glacier. Although the area is sparsely populated and the impact on human settlements has so far been limited, the analysis points out that this kind of instant and massive restructuring of a river system could be devestating in an area where people rely on a watercourse.

 

Prof Lonnie Thompson, a paleoclimatologist at Ohio State University, said the observations highlight how incremental temperature increases can produce sudden and drastic environmental impacts. “There are definitely thresholds which, once passed in nature, everything abruptly changes,” he said.

 

Read more ~ River piracy and drainage basin reorganization led by climate-driven glacier retreat in Nature Geoscience

Read more ~ Receding glacier causes immense Canadian river to vanish in four days in The Guardian Online

Read more ~ Abrupt glacier melt causes Canadian river to vanish in four days in ABC News

Investors snapping up community energy projects… which are selling out in hours!

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

solar panels bakers maison

Within six hours of it opening, investors had pitched in to invest in one of the newest community funded renewable energy  projects,  a huge 230 kilowatt solar system on the roof of Bakers Maison in western Sydney.

The public appetite for community-funded renewable energy appears to be limitless, with projects proving so popular they are selling out within minutes of being offered to investors.

This latest initiative, saw 20 investors pitch in almost $400,000 in total in just six hours.

The project has been set up by volunteer-run ClearSky Solar Investments. The company will pay investors for the solar energy it uses over a period of between seven to 10 years. The investors get a 7% return on the money they put in. After that time, the business owns the panels and will use its energy for free.

“There’s a huge appetite out there for people to invest in renewable energy, we just need more projects,” ClearSky Director Warren Yates said.

Bakers Maison employs 120 people and runs every day of the year, baking and freezing French-inspired products that are sold to all corners of Australia. “We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in utility bills,” General Manager Pascal Chaneliere said.

The bakery already had a 100 kilowatt solar power system, which will now be bolstered by this new, much larger community project. Mr Chaneliere said getting investors involved to help out with the costs of the new solar panels would help further reduce their bills.

“We signed a contract for the cost of electricity for the next coming years, so it makes a lot of sense. We know exactly what will be the expenditure for the next five years.”

David Blowers from the Grattan Institute said community projects had potential to save the electricity grid from expensive upgrades that are passed on as costs to consumers. He said network businesses should look to get involved in some community projects.

“You want to see a framework which encourages the right sort of solution for the right sort of problem,” Mr Blowers said. “At the moment it’s a one solution fits all, which is you build more poles and wires.” He added his view that Government needed to look at the way the grid costs were regulated to make sure costs were spread fairly.

More than 50 community solar projects are up and running across the nation, with individuals investing almost $24 million in total.

But Australia remains well behind Denmark, which has 5,500 projects up and running, many of those wind farms.

Scotland has more than 500 community energy projects, while Germany has 880 energy cooperatives.

 

Re-post ~ Investors snapping up community-energy projects | ABC News
Read more ~ The surprising asset ordinary Aussies are investing in | News.com.au

Outback pub brings hope and healing

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

A former vegetable farmer from Victoria has renovated a derelict outback pub with the aim of turning it into a community hub for local Aboriginal people. Andrew Stacey particularly wants to provide meaning and purpose for local youth by creating a place for all ages to meet, display their artwork and, he hopes, a whole lot more.

 

The 140-year-old Queens Head Hotel in Wilcannia has recently been re-opened as a community hub for the local Aboriginal community.

 

Mr Stacey decided to buy the Queens Head Hotel in Wilcannia and turn it into a community arts facility after chatting to locals to understand what their needs were and how they could best be met. He believes that an arts facility is a good ‘front’ for many other things that the town needs, such as advocacy, assistance and mentoring and education. He also hopes that the facility will act as a kind of ‘shopfront’ for visitors to the town.

Aboriginal locals are enthusiastic about the project, which was launched recently with a community art exhibition including the names of every local Aboriginal family.

 

“It’s going to be something that won’t fail … because to me it’s like a gathering place. Somewhere for people to go and sit, and meet up, and talk about issues in the town.”

 

Said Colleen Wilson, who attended the launch.

Stacey, who is also an artist, is happy to have been able to solidify his connection with the town, which he has felt very strongly since his first visit in 2016, describing it as ‘vivid and alive and warm and welcoming’.

“This was a great public house of drinking, and it’s a matter of great pride to see it converted to a public house of healing.”

Re-post ~ Derelict outback pub becomes ‘public house of healing’ for Indigenous locals in far west NSW on ABC News

What makes us happy at work? A new report on job satisfaction in Australia clues us in.

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Rural workers are happier at work than their city-dwelling counterparts, according to a new report by Rebecca Cassells of Curtin University. The report, jointly published with the organisation Making Work Absolutely Human (mwah), aims to demonstrate which factors are most important for job satisfaction among Australians in order to make work ‘as human as possible’.

align=”centre”

Older workers are happier at work than younger workers, reflecting the fact that they often continue to work by choice

There is evidence that factors such as where we live can indeed influence how happy we are at work. For example, 38% of workers in remote or very remote areas reported that they were ‘very satisfied’ with their work as opposed to only 27% in major cities. The largest percentage of very satisfied workers live in Tasmania, whilst Western Australia has the least happy workforce. However, the reasons for this varied from state to state.

Interestingly, earnings only increase job satisfaction up to a point. Workers who are ‘satisfied’ with their job earn an average of $1,267 a week, whereas those who are ‘very satisfied’ only earn $1,183. This reflects the fact that those on a higher wage tend to work more hours which can impact on their personal life.

 

“The trade-off between happiness with certain aspects of a job and dissatisfaction with others is evident. It’s unlikely that any job will deliver everything that is needed to be happy at work, but certain things can help.”

 

Many other factors also make for a potentially more satisfying work life, according to the report. These include running your own business or working for a small, local business, who you work with, being able to work from home for some of the week and working outdoors.

Read more ~ Happy Workers: How Satisfied Are Australians At Work?