Living Lightly Blog
Featuring residents, family or groups ‘living lightly’ on Aotea
On Aotea, we have the unique opportunity and simultaneous challenge of living on an off-grid island with limited and finite resources. This presents us with an up close and personal look at our effect on the fragile environment and ecosystems that we are a part of and surrounded by.
Throughout this expose, feature some of the island residents who try to ‘live lightly’, each in their own ways. We showcase residents who have lived here for a long time, maybe even their whole lives; across the board those who have just arrived and are also striving to tread lightly on their environment and consciously reduce their footprint, carbon or otherwise. We endeavour to show that whether full-time, part-time, long-time, or short time, each of us can make a positive impact on what the future of Aotea looks like
The goal is to inform and inspire the rest of our community as we face local and global climate, marine, plastic and other crises. On Aotea, we have a fighting chance to lead as an example and show our love, dedication and respect for our motu, by engaging in small, important changes to our daily lives that will have large, lasting and impactful changes.
We know and agree that big changes in this arena need to come from top down, from national and local policy, and from the producers of the plastics and other pollutants. We also know that individual consumers can collectively influence policy and suppliers. But currently, Aotearoa is ranked 15th in the world for it’s single-use plastic waste generation per capita, at 39kg per person, per year. We believe with conscious consumerism, available alternatives, such as the newly available soft plastic reusing scheme, we can get our personal island waste to landfill down to the bare minimum.
Stories by Bree Biederman and photos captured by Saskia Koerner.
Te Kura O Okiwi
“We don’t want to do any more damage to our ecosystems, we want to help them.”
Bree & Riley
“Understanding and witnessing the climate crisis, we want to do everything we can to not be a part of exacerbating the current issues. We are in a privileged position to be able to take action, so we think it’s imperative that we do so.”
Julie Bowers-Rakatau
“Having the shop has really allowed me to understand the sheer miles on food. It’s really bothersome and not well understood or thought about. We need to be really thoughtful in this arena and try to keep it as local as possible. “
Kurt Carter & Saskia
“There was nothing on the land, we built everything from scratch from recycled materials. Starting from scratch allows us to make conscious choices at every turn, we are learning everyday. “
Joss Bellerby
“I go through a thought process, thinking “do I need this or want this? And at what cost is the want going to come at?”"
Sarah Harrison
“As an artist, over time I have realized that our role is to inspire and encourage people to look at ‘trash’ in a different light and to help keep those conversations around waste minimisation flowing.”