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 Jenny Indian, Stanley Despite the fact that you may currently be languishing in winter sun and actively seeking out those sunny spots out of the wind, now is the time to really think about summer shade – the why’s, the where’s and the what species. Over winter barerooted tree stock is
By Bruce Nulty, Wodonga Urban Landcare Network (WULN) The Society for Growing Australian Native plants had a strong influence in Alice Springs during the 20 years we lived there, before moving to Wodonga 17 years ago. I revisited Alice Springs early last year and was surprised to see grass in the
By Lauriston Muirhead, Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) Fossil evidence and observation of modern primates indicate that humans and our ancestors have lived in family groups or tribes for millions of years. The greatest punishment was always to be excluded by your tribe. Group living is better than individual living
By Jill Coghlan, Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) There’s a real change happening on the land today as innovative farmers and graziers understand the importance of healthy soils. They understand that sequestering carbon in soils is a means of achieving healthy soils, crops and pastures. A great bonus to this
By Lizette Salmon, StopAdani Albury-Wodonga and Wodonga Albury Toward Climate Health (WATCH) One of the highlights of travelling Europe in my twenties was a bike ride across The Netherlands, the country with the world’s largest number of cyclists and best bike paths. I assumed it had always been king of
By Tess Middleton, Fin Free Albury Wodonga By now you would have noticed all my articles have one common theme – the Shark Fin Trade. You may wonder what this trade actually is, why I care about ending it and what it means for the sharks. As I have no intention of
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
