Living Lightly is a collection of local stories about sustainable living.
The column commenced in 2012 and until 2023 was published in the Border Mail newspaper each week.
The content is community sourced – groups, organisations and individuals have written and contributed each of these informative and entertaining articles – all overseen by a local volunteer coordinator.
We are currently considering a monthly schedule for articles, stay tuned as we explore this option.
Here you can browse and search previous articles or subscribe to receive an email each time an article is published.
The Living Lightly coordinator is always keen to receive articles! Use the link below to find out how you can submit an article for the column.
With a big thank you to all the Living Lightly authors for contributing to this wonderful collection of articles.
By Alan Hewett, Chiltern When we first moved onto out rural property we were plagued by Sparrows. They nested in the roof, were noisy, messy and hostile to the native birds. We tried various measures to get rid of them, including building a Sparrow trap which caught nary a one. Then, over
By Cheryl Graham, Yackandandah The Yackandandah community is exploring how we can do housing in a radically better way. We want housing that is more affordable, much more energy efficient and builds a wonderfully connected community of residents of all ages and life stages. We want housing that caters for single
By Jonathon Howard, Albury The future of Murray Darling Basin is one of the most important environmental issues facing our Nation. Yet a Plan for its future, which uses some of our best science, is often claimed to be flawed. Why is this so? Sustainability is not just about science, it
By Roger Findlay, Gerogery We are fortunate living in a country with so much variety of foodstuffs in the Supermarkets but we are unfortunate in being presented a tasteless product. When did you last see a bug, blemish or soil on fruit and vegetables in the Supermarket? Unless you grow your
By Tess Middleton, Fin Free Albury Wodonga Before Easter I wrote an article regarding the sustainability of our seafood, in particular, flake. Little did I expect the CEO of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to reply and downplay the facts. When a little article in a local paper gets this kind
By Olivia Noto, StopAdani Albury-Wodonga If anyone tries to tell you that moving house days before Christmas with a teething baby is a good idea, they’re lying. But as it turned out, last year my family and I became the latest ‘tree changers’ to move from Melbourne to Wodonga, rejoicing
By Richard Paschke, Wangaratta A couple of years back I heard of something called Repair Café. Someone in Amsterdam had the idea to help people fix their broken goods and keep them from going to landfill. At the time I thought ‘What a great idea’. I also thought ‘a lot of
By Bruce Key, Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) Renewable energy is very popular, but it has a big drawback – its intermittency. This raises the question of how to store electricity so that it is available when required. The obvious answer is batteries, but it is difficult to have sufficient
By Tess Middleton, Fin Free Albury Wodonga Can you believe it’s the end of March already?! Where has this year gone! As Easter is only a few days away I thought I would remind you of your sustainable seafood options for Good Friday (and any day of the year!) Now I know
By Sue Slater, Birallee Park Neighbourhood House Many of us plant a zucchini seedling in spring, only to find that we can harvest enough zucchinis to compete with major supermarket growers. Or how about that lemon tree that reminds us of Nanna’s lemon meringue pie, or the pasta sauce that our Nona
By Joan Jones, Trust for Nature Covenanter Many of us have had bumper crops of fruit and vegetables this year, but what to do with the excess? We’ve made jams, jellies, sauces, relishes and soups. We’ve bottled, dried, pickled and frozen to such an extent the freezer and pantry are full.
By Roger Findlay, Gerogery Hobby farming out here in Gerogery West isn’t quite like what you see on River Cottage and Gourmet Farmer. Yes, it goes close to living the dream but it does have ups and downs. For a start there’s a lot of hard work involved and you don’t
