The editors from Blogged.com recently sent me this email below. This is fantastic news as there are BILLIONS of blogs and its great to hear that sustainability news from our local site is reaching such a wide audience! Please be sure to post your local urban, sustainability events, initiatives & ideas to enjoy this service. And please read on!

“Our editors have recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.3 score out of (10) in the Society category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/directory/society

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style. After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.3 score.”

At the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table on Sustainable Food Systems, VicUrban led a discussion / role play on how developers could contribute to productive gardening in estates. The audience consisted of 78 knowledgeable sustainable food enthusiasts who provided some very interesting feedback. Please find the raw data of the first of three role’s below.

Gardening Communities: What can a developer do to facilitate a productive gardens culture?

Role #3 - You have lived in the development for more than 10 years. What does the productive landscape look like?

• Active web of community gardens

• New land opened or sold for development should be reserved for community gardens

• 3/4 of the land used for development of some sort involving plantings, watering systems – everyone who is not able to do or is on their own to receive help via working bees & then store produce
• PRIDE in their vegie garden PLUS feeling part of community friendship
• Commitment & genuine interest in productive gardening

• Very green
• Busy (with people)
• Diverse according to area/ section of development eg. Orchard/ meadow/ fresh produce, etc.

• Shared community gardens & orchards
• Kitchen garden program ins the local school
• Redistribution of surplus produce to people in the community in need

Read the rest of this entry »

At the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table on Sustainable Food Systems, VicUrban led a discussion / role play on how developers could contribute to productive gardening in estates. The audience consisted of 78 knowledgeable sustainable food enthusiasts who provided some very interesting feedback. Please find the raw data of the second of three role’s below.

Gardening Communities: What can a developer do to facilitate a productive gardens culture?

Role #2 - You have been living in the development for 2 years. What would you see emerging over that time that could involve the active support of the developer?

Facilitate materials, storage, seedbank

Community workshops
Help set up sale of produce
Community gardens expert
More sophisticated methods of resource sharing

Community gardener – expert
More sophisticated community tool shed
Community events, workshops, festivals

Assisting to maintain #1 unitil it is self-sustaining.
Maintaining the meeting space – or is that the council’s responsibility?

Produce
Possible “jim’s gardening” contracted to run gardens if individuals don’t want to do this themselves

Waste-water treatment & recycling at community level
Productive trees planted in public space, schools
Open Gardens festivals
Childcare centres, etc

Funding enterprise body to maintain edible streetscaping

Help to improve the efficiency of the operation by coordinating the many individual actors for marketing and resource management, Waste management, composting and distributions

Planning and maintenance of public space includes community gardens

Mechanism for surplus produce to be used eg. Go to one umbrella
Community events around food
Financial contribution?

Seedbank / nursery
Distribute centre for excess food

Distribution systems for excess food
IT email network to allow sharing of plants – questions about plant, requests for new plants or information about it
Read the rest of this entry »

At the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table on Sustainable Food Systems, VicUrban led a discussion / role play on how developers could contribute to productive gardening in estates. The audience consisted of 78 knowledgeable sustainable food enthusiasts who provided some very interesting feedback. Please find the raw data of the first of three role’s below.

Gardening Communities :What can a developer do to facilitate a productive gardens culture?

Role #1 - You are a person who has just moved into the development. What would you want to find there to support your involvement in productive gardening?

• Space for community gardens and composting of market gardens, etc.
• High quality soil
• Information on food growing
• Shared tools
• Room for private gardens
• Intergrating business to support gardening such as nurseries

• Space orientation to sunlight, good placement of buildings to avoide unusable space
• Rainwater tanks on every building

• New home: garden patch fully established with recycled water & instructions on website that provides info on future plantings & posts & where to go to get seeds + sell surplus produce
• Also tools & soils & how to grow
• Access to people who have garden info expereince & samples of fresh food to taste & estimate of cost of water and carbon sink (?)

• Community meeting space, community website for new residents to visit to see where to go for support, where to begin, like minded people, etc.
• Community shed with tools etc for people to borrow
• Involve local schools – children to teach/ involve parents

• Sidewalks
• Grey & blackwater systems built into houses
• Collection systems for rooftop water
• Space for a community garden & accommodation for animals
• Space for individual gardens
• Shared shed with tools for residents
• Fruit trees planted around the development

• Access land & water (regular water) & sun
• Point of contact for information – demonstration garden
• Acces to utillities?
• Area for animals
• Experimental garden area plotting

• Community compost
• Community space/ center
• Water harvesting
• Food/ seeding/ people swap program
• Soil improvement/ produce gardening workshops
• Commmunal orchid
• Chooks and ducks
• Developer puts in raised vege patch in
• Less shade-causing structures – food production needs sun
• Trellis set up for deciduous shade
• Less fencing so we share more
• Natural wetland
• Windmills and solar – passive solar
• 2 systems for water – drinkable & other uses

Read the rest of this entry »

Also listed recently on Australian Policy Online was this talk by Richard Neville below which may be of interest to Sustainable Melbourne readers.

Public lecture Richard Neville : Emerging Future
Tuesday 24 June, Melbourne VIC

All the flag waving in the world won’t stop the food riots, or the sea rising or the icecaps melting. Happily, the wine still flows, carbon trading shows promise and we can watch disaster movies on laptops. The food gets finer, even as the fish disappear. We face peak oil, peak water, even peak civilization; but let’s not mention the resource wars. Now is the time to stretch our mind skills, such as adjusting to paradox, adapting to change and engaging the future. Do we face a long boom, a long emergency or a slow, startling and irresistible decline into a Third World lifestyle. Pass the lentils, light the dung. Hot rocks in the outback could replace the need for coal; skyscrapers might grow food, water tables may be refreshed with artificial rain or the tears of the GodsŠ and through it all, you’ll need to learn to live in three time zones. Confused? Welcome to the future - it’s where you’ll spend the rest of your life.

Time: 1.00pm to 2.00 pm
Venue: BA 201 Lecture Theatre Swinburne University (Hawthorn campus)
Topic: Urban and regional planning

More Information > Swinburne University

“Australia 2020 Summit: Final Report” was recently posted on Australian Policy Online . Please find a brief abstract and a link to the full article below.

Australia 2020 Summit: Final Report
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Posted: 02-06-2008

This report is intended to provide a record of the Australia 2020 Summit and recommendations on each of the discussion areas for consideration by the Australian government. It is based on ideas put forward by participants during the summit discussion sessions, outcomes from preliminary summit events and ideas generated from public submissions received prior to the summit.

The report includes an introductory section and ten chapters which can be viewed and/or downloaded separately

> Read full text

Professor Chris Ryan, director of the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL) gave a futuristic presentation at the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table on Sustainable Food Systems, 28 May. Titled, “From Jim’s mowing to Jim’s sowing” and based on the VEIL Hub visions to consider what a sustainable Melbourne could look like in the year 2032 (to learn more about this visit http://www.ecoinnovationlab.com/activity/?p=6), Chris took on the role of Jim’s grandson who in 2032 would have extended the business to include sustainable features! This presentation certainly impressed the audience. View for yourself below!

Michael Chew from Environment Victoria spoke about the “Peddling Fruit Pickers” project at the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table on Sustainable Food Systems, 28 May.

The Peddling Fruit Pickers project aims to collect unharvested fruit and vegetables from local residents and distribute them to people in need. This would occur through volunteers cycling or walking around to participating residents houses to collect the produce, which would be taken to local community centres to redistribute.

The first step of the project research involves developing a simple food map of exactly which houses in the community have excess produce and are willing to donate it. This ‘food-map’ would then contribute to the feasibility study to see if there would be enough interest to actually run the project.

To find out more about the project check out Michael’s presentation below. Alternatively, if you would like any more information about the project please contact Michael: 9341 8107 / 0432 025 911 / Michael.Chew @envict.org.au.

Kirsten Larsen is the Eco-Innovation Policy Research Manager at the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL). Her recent work includes the very well researched and structured report: “Secure and Sustainable Food Systems for Victoria“. Click here to see one of the many press releases about this report. Alternatively visit http://www.ecoinnovationlab.com/pages/library.php to download the entire report.

Kirsten’s presentation titled, “Sustainable and Secure Food Systems - The Next Steps” can be viewed below.

If you haven’t checked them out yet please do have a look before they finish because they sound really really good!

Alfred Deakin Lectures 08 - 4 - 15 June
www.deakinlectures.net
Where: Various locations throughout Victoria
Further info: The lecture series begins by looking at innovation & the reception of new ideas. The lectures then embark on a voyage from the human mind to outer space. From brain to body, human cities, nation building international relations, planet earth. Ending with a ‘continulogue’ giving the last word to young voices that will reflect on the lectures they have heard.