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 Kirsten Coates We are currently in the midst of a one in a thousand-year event. It’s not a flood or a bushfire or a drought but rather a planetary phenomenon. Over the next few weeks four planets will be in alignment: Saturn, Mars, Venus and Jupiter and we earthlings
By Lauriston Muirhead If you don’t look after your mental health, it can’t look after you. I am no mental health expert but, being an older person, I have picked up some tips along the way. Exercise – a lot of walking will do, but even better, try to get
By Chris McGorlick At the height of summer, and as the cusp of Autumn approaches, there is a highly seasonal occurrence that I relish every year. It’s not the flowering of an exotic plant, nor the arrival of a migratory creature, nor the fruiting of a particular vegetable. But rather,
By Bruce Key, member of Wodonga Albury Toward Climate Health (WATCH) To their credit, Albury Council recently voted unanimously to declare a climate emergency, becoming the 108th Australian council to do so. Many people will wonder why it is an emergency, even if they think that more action to mitigate climate
By Lizette Salmon, Gardens for Wildlife Albury-Wodonga Project Officer Gardens can provide vital stepping stones for native animals moving through the landscape for food, water, breeding or migratory purposes. Even small habitat gardens have the potential to provide temporary and longer-term refuge for native birds, insects, reptiles and small mammals.
By Alan Hewett As we move, albeit tardily, towards a clean energy future, hydrogen has been hailed as a major solution to reducing global emissions, halting climate change and creating employment. What is hydrogen exactly? Well, it is an invisible, colourless and odourless gas that burns cleanly and is the
By Mick Webster Locals may be interested in a citizen science conservation project undertaken by my brother near Christchurch in New Zealand. Next to his conservation covenanted bush block on the Banks Peninsula is a sizable plantation of exotic Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa). These trees were planted 30 years ago
By Ian Davidson and Chris Tzaros – Wangaratta Landcare & Sustainability The White-plumed Honeyeater is often one of the first birds to call in the morning and the last to call in the evening. It is commonly observed along the treed waterways and roadsides throughout our district, flitting around the
By Kirsten Coates What would Australia look like by 2030 if we simply listened to the needs of its people? Imagine what a high-speed rail network connecting regional areas and cities would look like! Imagine what large scale wind, solar, battery and hydrogen projects would do for hundreds of thousands
By Kirsten Coates The annual tradition of announcing the “Word of the Year” by various dictionaries is always interesting but never surprising. We have had “vax”, “quarantine” and “iso” in the last two years. But before that, the 2019 Word of the Year according to the Cambridge Dictionary was “upcycling”,
By James Sloan Whatever “net zero” carbon emissions really means and whether we can achieve it and keep global warming to 1.5° by 2050, depends to a large extent on individuals in wealthy countries like Australia making sacrifices to the way we live. Threatened by global warming, most of us
By Alan Hewett Is the modern diet superior to that of our ancestors? Our eating habits have changed more in the last 150 years than in the previous million years. Thanks to globalisation we can eat a range of foods at all times of the year but how nutritious is
