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 David Thurley The Roman philosopher Cicero once said “If you have a library and a garden you have everything you need.” Gardens mean so many things to different people and that may vary from time to time. Our native garden changes with the seasons as the various native trees
By Jonathon Howard It’s a dark moonless night and a male moth is out searching the neighbourhood. Although its dark, the moth does not need his eyes for this search. He uses his antenna. He picks up a scent. It’s a girl. He immediately turns towards the scent and flies
By Liz Hammond I’m retired, a grandmother, and I worry about our future on a warming planet. I’m a sometimes member of the local branch of climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) and for the past four years I’ve been a member of Albury Wodonga Knitting Nannas for Renewables. XR
By Alan Hewett How often have you taken something to be repaired and been told it’s cheaper to buy a replacement than fix it? We have an Australian made vacuum cleaner that is over fifty years old. Sure, it’s a bit heavy to drag around but it does its job,
By Bruce Key, member of Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) It is common to hear wind turbines described as blots on the landscape. In addition, solar farms are often criticised for taking up large areas of agricultural land, implying that the land is taken out of production. These criticisms
By Anne Stelling, Parklands Albury Wodonga The presence of bats tells much about the health of the environment. Where there are bats, there is bounty! Where there are microbats, there are plenty of insects. Microbats are primary predators of night-flying insects, using a sonar system of echolocation to navigate precisely
By Lauriston Muirhead Let’s deal with one of the more transparent fig leaves that our government uses to try to hide an appalling record on emissions reduction and effective climate action. I mean that tired old chestnut trotted out by politicians to excuse their pathetic efforts – “but we only
By Hannah Coates It’s getting almost impossible to find a car park out the front of my workplace. I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Recently, I’ve had to park my car and walk the last kilometre to my office. It’s a mere sliver of time,
By Libby Rouse Back in the 80’s I was fortunate to have winter holidays at Mt Buffalo Chalet. Run by Vic Rail, it was a quirky and wonderful place. Porters were there year on year, carrying bags, stoking fires, providing supper. The entertainment crew, always the same, would double as
By Jonathon Howard I have begun to wonder if property developers have the future of our region at heart. The economic incentive to reduce property setbacks and encourage gutter-to-gutter medium density housing appears to compromise our understanding of a traditional streetscape. Large, healthy street trees are one of the main
By Alan Hewett Our native wildlife is under threat from land clearing, feral animals and of course climate change. But there is a further danger, the illegal wildlife trade. This trade is estimated to be worth $24 billion worldwide, making it a very profitable criminal enterprise. Australia’s native reptiles and
By Kirsten Coates Every morning, despite the season or the weather, groups of women come together at various locations around the world to go swimming. They swim in the oceans, the rivers, the lakes and the dams of the world in an act that many people consider crazy and is
