Bringing food back home

In Australia, food travels approximately 2000 kilometres before it reaches your plate. That's like driving to Sydney and back for your groceries.

Our current agricultural system is heavily reliant on fossil fuels to function. Chemical pesticides and fertilisers are derived from oil and natural gas. Harvesting, processing, packaging, transport and refrigeration also rely on abundant fossil fuels. This arrangement is not only wasteful, it produces huge amounts of unnecessary greenhouse gases and makes us vulnerable to expected rises in oil prices.

The land around Maleny is ideally suited to growing a wide variety of organic food. The climate is suited to year-round production and there is ample rainfall at 1,500mm per year to support the production of food.

A bird's eye view on sustainability

Imagine being able to look down on our town and see where some action towards sustainability is taking place, from organic farming, permaculture training and backyard vegetable gardens, through to biodeisel production, waste recycling and rainwater tanks!

We are developing an interactive web page which will show sustainable practices and community resources on a map of Maleny.

The Green Map would:

• Assist in formulating plans. See Action Plan
• Allow people to connect with others to form useful alliances and networks
• Provide encouragement and enrich our view of our community

Getting there from here

We have a long way to go before Maleny can be called truly 'sustainable'. But if we are to effectively move towards that goal, we will need a coherent plan that includes:

• An analysis of the current situation
• A vision for the future
• A path to move from the current situation to the envisioned one

This process could be further broken down into vital areas: food, transport, employment, education, energy, water and waste, health, accommodation, economics and the community itself. Each area could be managed by a small project group.

What is Sustainable Maleny?

Sustainable Maleny is an organization run by volunteers to promote sustainability and community strength in Maleny and its environs, with projects supporting local food, local economy and renewable energy. Monthly forums are held at the old Witta school at 10am in conjunction with Witta farmers markets (3rd Saturday of the month), and currently feature guest speakers from the stallholders in the “Talk the Walk” series. The sustainability centre/library is open at the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre on Fridays from 10am to 1pm.

About Maleny ...

Maleny is a small scenic town 90 km north of Brisbane in the Blackall Range hinterland overlooking the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.