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 Geoff Williams A research paper by Australian Platypus Conservancy biologists (recently published by Australian Mammalogy) has confirmed that platypus suffer horrific injuries and potentially die after becoming entangled in rubbish. The study found that, on average, 4% of platypus encountered in live-trapping surveys in Greater Melbourne were found to
By Lauriston Muirhead If you could have your favourite drink in a byo glass for less than one cent or the identical drink in its own glass for $3.50, which would you choose? So why do we buy bottled water? Australia has some of the best tap water for drinking
By Jonathon Howard Doctor Doolittle was a hero in my younger years. His ability to talk to the animals was a gift I wish I had. Only when I got older did I realise that his song in the movie was actually right: we can all “grunt, squeak, and squawk
By Bruce Key, member of Wodonga Albury Toward Climate Health (WATCH) For some people, the phrase living lightly implies a spartan existence and additional costs. This need not be so. Take for instance the obvious example of solar panels. The payback period is only a few years and thereafter you
By Lauriston Muirhead On the planet Erath, there lived a dragon. Over hundreds of millions of years it sometimes slept and sometimes caused death and destruction. Many different things made the dragon angry or sleepy. When the dragon had been sleeping for a long time, people were able to
By Sue Brunskill, Wooragee Landcare On a perfect autumn afternoon recently, more than 40 people came together to share and learn about cultural burning on a property in Wooragee. This was the final scheduled burn on this current project but hopefully the practice will continue in this region. Cultural burning
By Anne Stelling, Parklands Albury Wodonga Ever since the Albury Wodonga Corporation gifted environmental lands to the community in the 1990’s, local people have demonstrated the value of that gift. Individuals young and old, University and TAFE students seeking to apply their knowledge, school classes from pre-school to U3A, local businesses
By Jonathon Howard I’ve built a series of ‘leaky weirs’ on my property. A leaky weir is a structure designed to slow water flow, filter the water through the vegetation, and reconnect the water to the surrounding floodplain. People might be familiar with these structures if they have seen Peter
By Alan Hewett Since the Covid lockdowns and restrictions dog ownership has increased to such an extent that there is now a shortage of pooches and people are prepared to pay thousands for one. Dogs are loveable of course, (unless you have one next door barking incessantly.) For over eleven
By Anne Stelling, Parklands Albury Wodonga By 2050, the climate in Albury-Wodonga is predicted to be more like that of Forbes in NSW, with fewer frosts and more heat waves, days of 40°C twice as common and heat waves lasting longer. We can expect intense storms in summer dumping more summer
By Charles Robinson Autumn is compost-making time and I love it. About twelve years ago I planted an extensive deciduous forest comprising English Oaks, Liquidamber, Claret and Golden Ash, Tulip Trees, Ginko Biloba, Red Oaks and Pin Oaks. These trees have many benefits but, best of all, they provide masses
By James G Sloan Some people think electric cars are a partial answer to climate change. They are not. We need fewer cars not different cars. Air quality is not the only problem. Moving to all-electric cars, to the extent they replace existing petrol cars, is positive but inadequate. Our
