TREVALLYN COMMUNITY GARDEN: Vision Lost or Redirected

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A TREVALLYN COMMUNITY GARDEN is the vision of a small group of Trevallynites that came together as the Trevallyn Sustainability Group. Their proposal came with the full package of ideals – social networking, community building, food security etc. etc. Sadly we are speaking in the past tense here because it seems that all these things are like, as our American cousins say, "motherhood and apple pie". But it seems that on Trevallyn the 'NIMBY syndrome' is alive and well and even for a community garden – an idea that most people purport to like. So why not?

The community garden idea was sold well enough it seems but actually there was not that much of a need to SELL it as it is one that comes with a full load of positive cultural cargo laced with social benefits. Nonetheless, the idea attracted its share of detractors. There was a laudable attempt to be 'professional' in order to win the day for the concept aided by a professionally prepared concept plan developed by Launceston City Council. Despite this, and possibly because of it in some cases, the outcome was the kind of polarisation that demands that there must be a winner no matter what the cost – or indeed no matter what is lost in order to win. A win-win outcome occasionally would be refreshing.

The Information Meeting was well managed as it seems that the Trevallyn Sustainability Network is well populated by qualified professionals of one kind or another. Most of whom it seems are women which may have gone some way to the polarisation. The detractors were by-and-large 'blokes' – and 'sporty blokes' at that. So it would seem that the men's business, women's business dynamic cannot be dismissed. But what about sustainability, food security, community networking, community development, etc.?

In this case the blokes have control of the land and for their purposes for they could line up long list of reasons as to why this proposal should go nowhere. That is so despite the women amassing an equally impressive list potential positives. Given this it looks like there is a need to be subversive and surreptitious in order to achieve at least some of the outcome sought. This could mean guerrilla gardening, or even gorilla gardening, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6], street verge colonisation or even a touch of cultural jamming. If reasoned argument and logic doesn't cut it, well other methods need to be considered.

Yes some of the detractors may have had legitimate concerns about untidiness, access to public land regarding THIS proposal, etc. However, it would be a pity if the Trevallyn Sustainability Group lost heart and momentum. We should watch this space for developments it might be a lot of fun.

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Energy Workshop on the Tamar

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Shanty or Sustainable Shelter ?

When you come into 'sustainability' from a cultural perspective you sometimes discover, happen upon, some extraordinary things. Taking a look at NVA's Website – a Glasgow based arts group – there was this entry ... "Harvest’s Eccentric Sheds ... Alongside Glasgow Harvest NVA wanted to try and find some of the most original allotment sheds in Glasgow. We commissioned film stills photographer Neil Davidson to search for, and record the most unique and interesting ‘eccentric sheds’ he could find. These are some of the results of his quest.

These structures are recycled architecture, they are all well ahead of their time and show a beautiful combination of practicality and imagination. These are the sort of buildings that give authorities a headache. They represent a freedom of spirit, an ‘outsiderness’, that hasn’t been tamed by petty planning restrictions or B&Q-itis."

To see the full project visit Neil Davidson’s WEBsite www.stillsman.co.uk.

And his two WEBgalleries on the sheds – Gallery 1 • Gallery 2

These 'sheds' are at the cutting edge of the sustainability endeavour. They speak volumes about the experimentation that goes on in "allotments" – 'Pommy speak' for community garden – alongside the community building, social networking, etc. These sheds also explain the not-in-my-backyard syndrome – wonderful but not in my backyard – that is exposed when this kind of social and cultural experimentation is proposed on a plot of land near you. Rather than say no, and with no discussion, we need to find ways to say yes if .............

These sheds not only represent experimentation into sustainable living social networking and cultural connection they also represent a threat to bureaucracies almost everywhere where the evidence is increasingly point to the unsustainable paradigms bureaucracies increasingly support for fear of loosing their authority. Interestingly, these sheds are not only of evidence of lost authority they are blatantly disrespectful of it – as a consequence each builder is a hero, an artist, an activist and a cultural treasure.

Smart and Seeking Sustainability by Design

Responsible and sustainable design is a sheik idea that helps a business cut it in a competitive market place – even when it might be critiqued for being a part of excessive consumerism .... click here to read more

Wasting Water and Money

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In Tasmania we have all watched the State Government inexplicably take water management away from Local Government and pay the new bureaucrats extraordinary salaries to run a new water authority. We are discovering, as the plan unravels, that the promise of a better water future is a mirage – or is it a smoke and mirrors demonstration.

It turns out that researchers in Melbourne – Monash & Melbourne Universities – have been telling urban planners for some time that the "environmentally responsible" thing to do with stormwater is not to pipe it into rivers from urban landscapes as has happened on Trevallyn. ... click here to read more

What these researchers are saying is not so dissimilar to the proposition that was put to Launceston Council's engineers in respect to the "Trevallyn Stormwater Separation" folly. These people where placed in the invidious position of implementing a flawed planning decision that in the end they had no influence over. Worse still it cost Launceston ratepayer something in the order of two million dollars!

The rationale for the project and its method of implication had no credibility at all –nor did it ever have any. It may be misguided but it seems that there is no evidence that it had, or has, any credibility at all. Furthermore, there is very good evidence that the environmentally responsible thing to do is ‘treat’ urban stormwater before releasing it to a river system – either via a sewerage plant or via the landscape or wetlands, using it on site etc.

In a letter to the editor at the time Launceston's General Manager, Frank Dixon, threw away the line "the council will be exploring opportunities to reuse rainwater" that underlines the follies deeply embedded in the Trevallyn Stormwater Separation project. It was a hollow promise, it makes no commitment to do just that and it is one that totally lacks credibility based on the evidence. Excuse the ratepayers if they might think that in regard to that project an opportunity "to reuse rainwater" was bureaucratically squandered.

Indeed, the Trevallyn Stormwater Separation project represents a misuse of ratepayer's funds on a number of fronts. It is painfully clear that this project has cost Launceston's ratepayers far too much. In the end it did not deliver cost effective nor environmentally appropriate outcomes.

Clearly there is a disconnect between the planning and the implementation of a project and clearly planners have never been in a position to change the direction or even challenge the wisdom or efficacy of any bit of bureaucratic folly that is costing ratepayers millions of dollars. The more one looks the less wisdom one finds in Government to do with water management.

Why did Launceston's ratepayers pay anything at all when the responsibility to do so is no longer Launceston’s? This project was a very large impost on all of Launceston’s ratepayers and you can bet that the new water authority will find ways to slug them for what they have already paid for.

The worst of it all is that storm water is being treated as waste water. Its quite clear that nobody on Council understands Launceston’s looming water problems it seems. If they do they have been sidelined.

Nobody is likely to get a rationale explanation for any of this because there just isn’t one. However, there is always the hope that we might find someway to cut through and get government – Local, State and Federal – to start to take notice of the research and implement sustainable water planning. There is no option but to do so really!

21st Century Community Gardening, a whole new take on it

Community gardening is a multidimensional activity that is increasingly being used as a social strategy to address all kinds of community ills and social circumstances.

During the austerity of the Second World War in Britain, and Australia too, all kinds of spare land was commandeered for food production. Indeed the the "DIG FOR VICTORY" slogan is being invoked again in a 21st C context.

Austerity is a relative thing and right now in Tasmania the food shortages that were experienced in WW2 Britain bear little or no comparison to what know today. Nonetheless, there is a VICTORY to be won over relative poverty, social isolation and exclusion, the creeping unaffordability of energy and housingand more still.

Even though Australia/Tasmania has escaped the worst of the ravages of the international GFC the imperatives that seem to be driving community interest in food gardening are still with us – and are likely to be so for some time yet. Community gardening is seeming to win some attention as a kind of economic stimulus interestingly.

The Internet is turning out to be a useful 'garden tool' as all kinds of once obscure information is now readily available at the click of a mouse. Indeed intending community gardeners need only click here to get the 'good oil' on the basic infrastructure required for a community garden and here for a fascinating story in the Hobart Mercury that puts a whole new spin on the subject.

There are many ways to reimagine rubbish

If you have an idea and you want to sell it, this might be a way to go but maybe not. Anyway it is an interesting picture. Now that we have your attention please read on!

There is indeed a multitude of ways to reimagine rubbish and it needs to be done. The 'old' so called tried and true methods are failing not only badly but VERY badly. At the top of the heap are the so called "public servants"! Sadly they no longer seem to see their role as being 'of service.' Worse still, they are all too often aided and abetted in their social dysfunctionalism by our "political representatives" many of whom seem to have lost the plot.

There is a need to think outside the box but bureaucrats are generally not good at that. Their best work is often done managing, and reimagining, their promotion options and superannuation alternatives. Too many of them are addicted to the status quo but it is not really their fault. Why? Because we tend to be more comfortable with that and we send out that signal – we must stop doing that!

The NOTrubbish BLOG is starting to try and show another way of imaging 'rubbish'. There are some interesting ideas out there and there needs to be a forum through which they can be discovered, interrogated and tested for veracity.

There is also a SNAZZYidea out there that is also a TAZZYidea. It is the Hobart Tip Shop – click here to read more – This group of people are at the cutting edge of sustainable cultural activeism in Tasmania. A spin off from their original concept is their ART FROM TRASH PROJECT and it is a space that we might do well to watch – as they say.

NO THIS IS NOT TASMANIA ... BUT! ... Look for the real story

Clearly this is not Tasmania but wherever it is they are doing what Tasmania knows how to do well. The exemplar extinction that belongs to Tasmania is the Thylacine, or the Tasmanian Tiger but it does not and has not stopped there. When things go extinct it is a little bit like the "canary down the coal mine" story – watch out we are next! Unsustainability is so so obvious when you stop and really look at it. Actually these sea turtles are in Costa Rica.

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What these pictures are telling us we need to heed no matter where we live – Tasmania , Costa Rica or elsewhere. Humans have been into unsustainability for eons but increasingly it is obvious that we are approaching the end of the line and that we need to look a future where sustainability is more than an idea and it is something that we actively practice.

There is not a lot of difference between the unsustainability of this 'turtle egg harvest' and the unsustainability of much of Tasmania's resource management and if you live in Tasmania you will know about a great many of them.

NOW FOR A DIFFERENT SPIN ON THE IMAGES: The photographs are indeed genuine, but they do not depict the illegal poaching of turtle eggs. In fact, the egg harvest shown in the photographs is a perfectly legal and strictly controlled event that is managed by the Costa Rican government and been in operation since the 1980's.

Far from being an "attack against nature", the egg harvest is an integral part of a long term conservation program that has resulted in a significant increase in the successful hatchings of Olive Ridley Turtles.

Wouldn't be really nice if we could put an alternative spin like this on some of the unsustainabile harvesting that goes on in Tasmania?

Pictures speak volumes and avoid long essays and deliver their messages at lightning speed. Send us your images and but be careful about the way you tell your stories.

About The Tasmanian Sustainable Communities Network

The Tasmanian Sustainable Communities Network is intended to be a broad coalition of individuals, community networks and organisations in Tasmania. The intent of the TSCN is to pool information on sustainability and to make it more readily accessible.

There are many ways to define sustainability in a community context and there are many different ways for communities to promote more sustainable lifestyles for the people who live in them and a more sustainable future for their decedents. The sustainability of a community depends upon:

• Creating and maintaining a community's environmental health,
  
• Promoting economic well being;
• Promoting social equity; and
  
• Encouraging community members' participation in civic planning and its implementation.
  

For many communities this often involves engaging the whole community in something of a paradigm shift. Nevertheless, in the end we live in an and are part of an ecology rather than "the economy" that is often lauded as being the key factor of community life.

Communities that engage people and institutions with sustainability principles and a collective vision for the future and one that is an integrated approach to environmental, economic and social goals are more likely to be more successful.

Employment creation, effective energy use, sustainable housing and transport systems ,plus education and health systems that promote sustainability, are all complementary parts of the whole. Since all issues are interconnected they must be addressed as a system.

The process includes:

• Broad and diverse involvement of people in the creation of a collective vision for a future that they see themselves as having something invested in;
• The development of sound evidence based sustainability principles
• Taking stock of existing assets and resources – physical, environmental, social & cultural – and additional assets that would benefit the community;
• Setting clear and measurable short and long term goals;
• The development of community benchmarks to evaluate progress;
• Open and transparent communication;
• Early and highly visible outcomes; and
• The celebration of success
  

Sustainability is a process of continuous improvement in order that communities can constantly and consistently evolve while making changes to accomplish goals. To share information about initiatives and projects in your community please email TSCN with information that you wish to share and/or making a link with your project possible.

Click here to link to information about a proposal for a sustainability cooperative for the Tamar Region