A new relocalisation/sustainability group in Queensland

Cooloola Shire, SE Qld, has joined the Climate Change groundswell. Zela Bissett emailed us about their small steering committee ‘trying to get things sorted’ for the region’s new Sustainability League. They have a lot of issues to deal with, so people are spread very thin….sound familiar? In particular they are concerned about the Mary River and stopping the Traveston Crossing development. The negative impacts outweighing the positive impacts can be viewed here.

UNESCO Workshops ‘Sustainability & Values: Making Connections’

Zela heard about these at the Brisbane Sustainability Expo in March. The workshops take you from the ‘big picture’ of what sustainability means globally, to national and local implications and educational applications. You are encouraged to connect your values and vision to desired sustainability actions for your school or workplace. Information will be provided about national and state initiatives that can support you in your programs, eg:

• The National Environmental Education Statement for Australian Schools
• Sustainable Schools Initiative
• National Values Education Program
• Australian Association of Environmental Education
• Curriculum links.

TIME

Thursday 10 May 4.30 -7.30
Saturday 12 May 9.30 -12.30

VENUE

Griffith EcoCentre, Nathan Campus

FACILITATORS

Sue Coad and Owen Secombe (Trained by UNESCO-APCEIU [Asia Pacific Centre for Education for International Understanding] in ‘Education for International Understanding’ & ‘Ecologically Sustainable Development’).

Cooloola’s Sustainability League – for grassroots action

The idea is to focus on the desirable vision FOR a sustainable society, rather than being ANTI-climate change, says Zela. This positive orientation takes into account that there are things that grassroots people’s groups can do to help avoid the worst excesses of Climate Change.

The idea is for an umbrella organization uniting and co-ordinating the efforts of many individuals and groups working with different aspects of sustainable futures and local empowerment.

• Firstly, they can help each other by sharing skills, know-how, information and encouragement to reduce our own ecological footprint and make our local area more self-sufficient and therefore more resilient in times of natural disaster or social disruption.
• Secondly, they can link up with other sustainability groups such as ‘Sustainable Maleny’, which aims to make the whole town carbon-neutral. For instance, when the protest was on about Woolworths and the platypus creek, they could have put on a local action to make Woolworths feel they were losing customers by insisting on building on that site.
• This example brings up the third really significant focus for a Sustainability League, which is to act as a pressure group on all levels of government, local, state and federal as well as business. While they can do a lot by changing our lives, it would all count for nothing unless the ‘big end of town’ comes to the party.

Activities include:

• Biodiversity, and especially topical locally, saving the Mary River from the destruction that a dam at Traveston would bring.
• Growing organic food, permaculture gardening and the decentralization of food distribution.
• Investigating urban planning and population concentration issues in view of the carrying capacity of bio-regions.
• Renewable energies, alternative technologies and transport systems.
• Changing personal/family lifestyles and reducing resource consumption.
• Preventing destruction/clearing of further forest reserves.

Events to date

A ‘Climate Change Roadshow’ evening was held in Gympie, Cooloola Shire in late March. It was part of an inspiring tour by members of the Lismore Rainforest Information Centre, along Queensland’s east coast. Climate change action groups have now formed to intensify efforts to change the way people live in Chevallum, Eumundi, Chancellor College, Cooroy, Noosa, Maroochydore, Bokarina, Caloundra, Beerwah and Maleny and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

20 May 2007, at the Community Centreplace in Lawrence Street, Gympie, is the date set down for the inaugural meeting of the Sustainability League in Cooloola.