Mountain Living Courses in the Blue mountains
Introduction
Blue Mountains City Council staff developed the concept of a sustainable living course for residents to build on existing community involvement programs including Bushcare, Earthworks and Bush Backyards. The courses are designed to complement on-ground works in priority sub-catchments within the LGA. Priority subcatchments are chosen on a variety of criteria including length of urban bushland interface, water quality leaving the catchment, value of remnant bushland within the sub-catchment. The venue and participants are drawn from that sub-catchment.
The course has a flexible format that can be delivered in two full days aimed at providing very practical information on simple ways residents can make changes in their own lives and on their own properties to live more sustainably.
Course content is flexible, and changes are made to suit the location of the course.
Course content covers three key areas:
- Water — reusing, virtual water, stormwater, catchments
- Waste/recycling/reusing — composting, worm farming, non-toxic cleaning
- Garden/property management — weed control, habitat creation and no-dig gardens
The Story of Mountain living
Mountain Living Courses grew out of a Sub-catchment Weed Management Plan. Linda was employed to approach the owners of key properties in the catchment of Yosemite Creek to provide property management plans incorporating fencing and revegetation of riparian corridors and targeted weed control. Landowners were encouraged to participate by the offer of financial assistance to purchase materials and labour (erosion controls, fencing and plants), on-site training in bush regeneration principles and techniques and volunteer labour where appropriate.
The on ground works were supported by a series of ‘Mountain Living’ workshops to which all residents in the catchment were invited to attend free of charge. The participants were assisted in devising individual property plans, mapping features related to weeds, stormwater, waste avoidance and water saving practices on their plans as the various topics were covered. All aspects of the course were related to features of the local catchment which allowed the participants to make direct links between the management of their properties and impacts on the creeklines and bushland they were familiar with.
The course was followed up by individual site visits to provide on-ground advice and training in application of the principles outlined to their properties, vouchers for local provenance native plants and a free compost bin.
As the project developed momentum in the community other residents who were not directly involved in the programmed activities also made contact and were provided with on ground property planning advice and a plant voucher.
The project took a whole of catchment approach to minimise reinfestation of weeds on public lands, improve water quality and strengthen habitat links throughout the catchment.
The Mountain Living course proved to be very popular and two courses were run in the North Katoomba sub catchment. The success of the course lead to its introduction in other priority sub catchments within the LGA.