The Human Ecology Forum » sustainability

Journey to Big Land

Deb — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:50:48 +0000

by Millie Rooney

Today I went on my first adventure out to suburban Melbourne. I want to tell you about it.
It began last night on the internet, throwing my hands in the air as the first public transport option to my destination gave instructions to catch the bus for 3 minutes, drive my car for 16 minutes and walk for 20 minutes. I began to wonder exactly what the developer meant by claiming that this master planned community had ‘easy public transport access’. After lots of faffing, starting again, looking at Google maps (which was only slightly more up to date than the Melways) I eventually realised that it was possible to get where I was going via public transport but that the Metlink website was rather, shall we say, ‘suboptimal’. Having now travelled there and back, I can confirm that while access by public transport is not easy, it is ‘possible’.
Although I didn’t travel from right in town, my guess is that it would probably take an hour to an hour and a half to travel from the city to this estate.

silhouettes of surburbia

Sitting on the train I watched suburb after suburb go by. The city centre and its odd balconies, disused train sidings, triangular corner stores giving way to old houses, new houses, small houses and the occasionally really grand house. Mostly though it seemed like your typical older Melbourne suburb, lemon trees in the backyard, falling down wooden fences. As the journey continued the small European backyards gave way to larger houses with balconies looking beyond the train line to the ocean, an RSL club rising out of the flat plain. Houses soon replaced by industrial sights, power poles, an oil refinery of storybook factory proportions. Drums and barrels, flame flues and smoke stacks, twisted and knotted pipes and taps, a spiral staircase to nowhere, wires and boxes and big fences. I found myself looking out for this inexplicable creation on future journeys, making sure I secured a seat on the right side of the train.

constucting community

The ocean lies to the south, its flatness blending in with the flatness of the land. A few horses grazed in a remaining paddock. Onwards the train continued until I could see the backs of warehouses, ‘Bike Warehouse’, ‘Snooze’, ‘Camping world’, ‘Sexy Land’, and ‘Baby Land’, everything supersized. Welcome to Big Land.
The train spat me out in this land of the large and I wondered where the people lived. A short and rather terrifying bus ride later and ‘bingo!’, there on the horizon, complete with Barbie style lamp posts was what I was looking for.
What I hadn’t realised was that the Boulevard was a part of the larger identity of Plumwood . There was an entrance wall welcoming me to Plumwood complete with gorgeous mosaics of orange bellied parrots, people playing, animals and plants. I cringed at the sight of so many houses unceremoniously plonked on the habitat of the enshrined, yet endangered parrot. A sign welcoming men to a men’s health walking group was tied to the fence.
The colourful outdoors feel of Plumwood was soon overwhelmed by the bright signs and car park of the Shopping Centre. I took myself through the car park and into the mall. A blast of dry air-conditioning greeted me at the sliding doors. A couple of black leather massaging chairs attempted to look like islands of calm amidst the assault of shiny floors, fluorescent lighting and sale signage. Clothing stores, food outlets, beauty salons; a mini mall.
The people in this place, or perhaps those responsible for its creation, seem to have an obsession with wellbeing and beauty (massage chairs, beauty parlours, a gym etc). The mall was an eclectic mix of beautifiers, boutiques (including an overpriced and over supplemented organic/health store), and cheaper more accessible places such as Woolworths, Lowes and Target.

"Although scrappier and weedier in real life, the place had the same feeling of planned idyllic perfection as the advertisements."

Escaping from the mall I went in search of a café, wandering out into the main strip of the town centre. Manicured trees, lollipops of green, lined the street, neatly packed in with concrete. Designer grasses covered the median strip in the centre of the road and women with strollers and pastel hats waited patiently at the crossings. Avoiding the glare of the concrete heat I settled myself inside a chocolate café and prepared to watch the world ‘go buy’. Women with strollers, tradesmen, older people and even the odd couple or two; the vibrancy of the place surprised me.
Leaving the café I prepared to enter the suburbs themselves. Strolling down the outside of the mall I was astonished to hear pop music was blasting from speakers outside, interrupted only by the occasional advertisement for deals at Lowes, or the Donut King. The essence of packaged lifestyle consumption seemed to be summed up in the pre-recorded soundtrack of my experience.
Deciding that it was better to wear my daggy hat than to become sunburned, I walked into my chosen estate. It was like walking into a developers PR skit. A mother was playing in the park with her two children, blond heads clad in pastel bucket hats. The spectacular spring weather meant the gardens were lush and flowers were blooming. The sun was shining. Although scrappier and weedier in real life, the place had the same feeling of planned idyllic perfection as the advertisements.
In a similar manner, the streets were not as empty as I had expected. Although devoid of many people, the number of cars parked either on the street or in driveways gave a sense of some kind of presence. It meant there was kind of a feeling of people being around.

Lifestyles for sale

People were coming and going, and generally very friendly. As I watched the tradesmen go in for their morning egg and bacon roll, I wondered what this place will be like in ten years time. The trees and vegetation will be established, the houses will be weary (some are already showing some signs) and I wonder how these shopping centres will fare. In some ways I guess they will be quite successful. It really is a long way to any other centre, yet I can’t help but worry how some of these things will survive with the absence of the building industry. But perhaps the shops will change, no longer takeaways for tradesmen, instead a cinema for teenagers, small businesses run by bored mums and services catering to the elderly. I wonder if they will ever become the empty shells that have been the fate of so many other small shopping centres in Australian suburbs.
That sense of energy in the place continued as I ventured past the school to another little shopping strip. An IGA, real estate, bakery, take away, Liquorland and a hairdresser. In an attempt to pick up some local gossip I enter the hairdresser and book an appointment. I’m overly conscious of my Birkenstock shoes and my inability to understand whether a blow wave just means drying my hair, or some kind of fancy styling. I leave feeling awkward and out of place, making a mental note to rethink my wardrobe.

And so I leave, looking forward to the travel time to think things through, and another chance to look at the oil refinery. I look forward to coming back and understanding this place more; untangling my sense of unease at the packet mix perfection this place seems to offer.
I end my first venture with a trip back to the mall and leave with some t-shirts designed to make me fit in with the locals. This place just makes me want to conform.

eco-shopping in the Philippines

Deb — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:04:30 +0000

I have just moved to Manila, and went shopping for household basics in the truly enormous Trinoma mall yesterday. I searched in vain for recycled toilet paper, settling at last with one half written in Chinese and Korean script, with a picture of an earth and an explanation of how recycled paper saves trees. Sharing the shelf with this cryptic number was possibly the most outrageous green-washing claim I have ever come across – “the eco-layer 3-ply toilet paper” – the tagline: “nothing but 100% pure plantation pulp will even touch you, but nestled in the middle is our special eco-layer made from recycled paper, so you can have the comfort of the highest quality paper while knowing you are doing your bit for the planet”.

Should I take some comfort from the fact that manufacturers clearly think they need to state their green credentials? Or just be outraged that anyone may actually think that they have made a legitimate environmental claim?

hope helps (or: smiling whilst working in fisheries)

Deb — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:45:51 +0000

It was many years ago now that my Filipino supervisor said to me ‘it’s important they see hope in all of this’.

He was referring to the Filipino artesanal fishers that we were to invite to a workshop on how addressing the fact that it often costs the fishers more to go fishing than to stay at home. Fishing is not very profitable in the now sparsely populated coastal waters of northern Luzon, especially if you’re sticking to the legal handlines and traps rather than the illegal cyanide and dynamite.

Very soon after, another colleague took a photo of the fish we had been served for dinner, with his wedding ring as a reference point. Yes, the fish were increasingly small, and the incomes of the usually poorly educated fishers, even smaller. Words like intractable and insurmountable came far more easily to mind than hope and encouragement.

But Perry’s words have often come back to me, and I think they apply as much to the fishers as it does to the countless development, disaster and research practitioners who are looking to improve the depressing trajectories that confront us every time we string a time series graph together. If we can’t hope, if our clients, participants and patients can’t hope, what will we have left? Philip Prett calls hope – substantial hope – ‘cognitive resolve’, and Braihwaite, Courville and Piper talk about the “bootstrapping that takes place between hope,
empowerment, ideas for change, and action”, writing “hope is the most enduring of these,
lying in wait through cycles of adversity and resistance to change.”

Time to plot out a framework of the enabling role of hope in sustainability.

Special saludo to Ines of Lisbon, who wants to join our community of practice through her work on sustainability and migration. Welcome Ines!

Food security

Deb — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:11:18 +0000

Reforming the economics of food production and supply would be beneficial for a number of environmental and social problems, argues Peter Baker at BBC online.

Feast or Famine – Science in the Pub

Deb — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:31:40 +0000

Should Australians cultivate native foods for the table? Join Catalyst’s Paul Willis, New Inventor’s Bernie Hobbs and Les Hiddins (aka The Bush Tucker Man) to debate the sustainability of our current food industry. Sunday Aug 17, 2 to 4pm, King O’Malley’s Irish Pub, Civic.

94th ESA meeting

Deb — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:59:59 +0000

The Ecological Society of America’s next annual meeting will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, August 2009, on the theme of “Ecological Knowledge and a Global Sustainable Society”.

Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability

Deb — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:43:25 +0000

The Eighth International Conference of the Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability network: “Kā kaiārahi o te kaitiakitaka: Tertiary Education Institutions Leading for Sustainability.” 1-3 October 2008 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Architectural sustainability

Admin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:04:47 +0000

Ruminations on architectural sustainability over at BLDGBLOG.

Co-Designing a Sustainable Culture of Life

Admin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:23:12 +0000

Viveka Turnbull Hocking (PhD candidate, Fenner School, The ANU)

The presentation will reflect on Viveka’s PhD work into design-led research and research-led design as a tool for change towards a sustainable future. The presentation will outline the concepts being played with in this metadesign project in order to open up the ideas for discussion. The aim of entering into this conversation is to get some feedback on the concepts being developed and to generate some ideas on how design-led methods might be of use to the research community in general.

Viveka is shortly attending three conferences to present her thoughts on co-designing a sustainable future. Towards that end she has supplied here two papers and one abstract relating to each of the three conferences:

* Designing a Travel Guide to the UnNatural World: Exploring a Design-led Methodology (331 KB)
* Changing the Change Conference: Co-designing a Sustainable Culture of Life (1.1 MB)
* Abstract (20 KB) for ‘Design with a Thousand Faces: Design-led methods for the social science research community’

Patagonia, and debate on social equity

Admin — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:19:29 +0000

This Friday the 23rd of May, we have a double bill. First up will be David Dumaresq leading a discussion on: “Effects of Climate Change, Sheep Deaths and the Southern Andean Condor’s Dietary Preferences on Tour Bus Operators Scheduling Proceedures in the Patagonian Steppe”. I believe this will be David giving us a Human Ecological view on parts of the landscape of South America. It will be followed by a presentation by Fenner School 4th year students Richard Hocking and Jasmine Logg-Scarvell on “Sustainability & Social Equity”, as part of their assessment for the Honours Pathway Option for Human Ecology. Richard will argue that a socially inequitable society could be more sustainable than any equitable society could. Jasmine will speak in favour of social equity and how it is an essential part of our sustainable future.