Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Living Earth Festival

Living in a community of individuals who put food first has been a motivating factor for me since moving to the Byron Shire.  The Mullumbimby Community Garden is a testament to that notion, and a prime example of how a vision and determination can create incredible things.  Welcome to one of the greatest places on earth...


The Living Earth Festival, put on by the Community Garden, took place on the first day of Spring (Sunday 1 September).  Entry by gold coin donation meant some funding for the gardeners but also easy access for the entire community...the crowds were huge.  Two keynote speakers joined the festivities: Costa Georgiadis and Jerry Coleby-Williams.


The start of the Festival began with a Street Parade; here are some of the vehicles that took part...


For anyone who is not familiar with @LockTheGate, they're a "national alliance campaigning for healthy communities and protection of our land and water resources from inappropriate coal and unconventional gas development".  Below is the Wishing Web with hundreds of messages shared by like-minded individuals who want a cleaner and greener future for all.


Add More Green certainly couldn't miss out on spreading the good word...





Bush Tucker; native plants and animals used for cooking or medicine.  The bushfood walk here doesn't contain any of the fauna (kangaroo or emu) but has plenty of native plants to snack on while you're perusing the garden.


A wonderful view from the gardens of Mt. Chincogan...the crow flies ten kilometres northwest to where I live.


After working on a design for a hemp-based vehicle while at Babson (in 2011), I've been fascinated by hemp design and development.  Below is a display set up at the Festival with information on building hemp-based affordable housing.  Hempcrete is a hemp and lime mixture that forms a lightweight yet strong building material.



The first day of Spring was shared by many local gardeners who as Costa mentioned form a community that puts food first.  That's exactly what Add More Green is looking to share with others...a community of changemakers creating a sustainable future for each other.




No comments:

Post a Comment

Creative Commons License
Add More Green by Nick Kovaleski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.