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 Andrew Baker With our energy mix shifting away from coal and fossil fuels, and new interest in electric vehicles (EVs), it seems almost inevitable that many of us will transition to the use of electric cars as sustainable transport options for the future. However, during conversations about electric cars
By Katherine Muirhead, Tabletop When we first moved to the “rural” suburbs 15 years ago, we planted hundreds of native shrubs including a variety of grevillea, callistemon and flowering eucalypts. Nearer the house we grew flowering plants, creepers, vines and buddleia to encourage birds, bees and butterflies. We had a
By Geoff Williams, Australian Platypus Conservancy Do you want to monitor local platypus numbers as part of a new citizen science project that seeks to conserve this very special mammal? The Australian Platypus Conservancy (APC) has developed standardised visual monitoring techniques during the past decade that very effectively track how
By Lizette Salmon, Gardens for Wildlife Albury-Wodonga Project Officer It’s very disappointing when you put a plant in the garden and it’s nibbled to the ground by rabbits. Or when your chooks are killed by a fox. Feral pests are a challenge for many of us living on the outskirts of
By Jonathan Howard Roadside reserves are complex parcels of land, with a range of interests and issues at play. Often these reserves retain significant biodiversity, including those remnants of ecological communities that are not well represented in national parks or stock reserves. They also provide valuable corridors, especially when linked
By Mick Webster Many people approaching their ‘twilight years’ seem to cast around without much idea as to what to do with the rest of their life – possibly 20 or 30 years, when they are still reasonably fit and have a desire to learn about the world, and maybe
By Jonathon Howard I came across a spider the other day. It was crawling across the flyscreen that covers my back door. My guess is that it was looking for somewhere to escape the dry. I recognised instantly as a spider belonging to the family Deinopidae, distinctive for its long
By Gill Baker, Wangaratta Sustainability Greta Thunberg organised a ‘Youth Strike for Climate’ in her native Sweden last year because she realised that her generation was going to have to deal with the effects of rapid human induced climate change, and that many of the leaders of world today either
By Tess Middleton, Fin Free Albury Wodonga How to have an egg-cellent Easter? Eat sustainably of course! This article is your go-to guide for what fish and seafood to feast on this Easter weekend. Picture this – you’re lining up with what feels like 100 other families, all just wanting
By Emma Avery, Founder & Owner of Cloth Baby Single-use plastics have become something of a taboo of late, and thanks to the ABC TV series War on Waste we are all adapting our behaviours. However, in spite of this growing awareness, there is a single-use plastic that is still increasing
By Alan Hewett We don’t speak about it much, going to the toilet that is. We have even developed a lexicon to describe it. We go to the bathroom, the dunny, the john or the loo. The latter expression is particularly interesting. It evolved from the French, “regardez l’eau.” This
By Tess Middleton, Fin Free Albury Wodonga The lights are out but everybody’s home, it must be Earth Hour! At 8.30pm on Saturday March 30, 2019 (AEST) hundreds of millions of individuals and thousands of businesses, in more than 180 countries, will be switching off to switch on to sustainability.
