Everything We Need

First Nations People have a wealth of traditional knowledge and skills to adapt to climate change, gained through thousands of years of survival and resilience. In Central Victoria, the Dja Dja Wurrung people have developed a climate change strategy called "Turning Wrong Way Climate Right Way." The strategy emphasises a holistic approach to climate change adaptation, incorporating all elements of the ecosystem and traditional knowledge. It includes specific initiatives, such as re-landscaping waterways, forest gardening, controlled cultural burns, and nature-based flood mitigation.

YIMBY is short for ‘yes in my backyard’. It’s a community-run, backyard composting scheme that was founded in 2020 in Castlemaine, Victoria. To organisers' knowledge, there’s no other program like it in Australia. Co-founder Lucy Young says YIMBY is a way of “sharing high-level composting skills with lots of keen composters, and supporting them to run micro-processing hubs at home." Joel Meadows, the other co-founder, explains the approach as super small scale and super local, with “low carbon input and low carbon output." Hear about the potential of schemes like this to help build resilient communities.

Maldon is a picturesque town in Djaara Country, about an hour and a half drive north of Melbourne. It's known for its heritage streetscape and goldfields history. It has an older but active population with around eighty community groups. As a town surrounded by bush and filled with weatherboard miners' cottages, the threats and impacts of heatwaves and bushfires are serious. Enter Amy Atkinson, coordinator of the Maldon Neighbourhood Centre, who subtly steers the community towards climate adaptation. By focusing on tangible impacts like heatwaves and bushfires, the ‘Climate Ready Maldon’ project fosters crucial conversations and empowers locals to confront the challenges of a changing climate.

Climate change is not just some some vague threat that will impact us in the future, the changes are touching our lives now. Everything We Need shares stories of Australian communities that are working with what they have, to protect the things they love. It's a podcast about re-thinking what we all need to thrive, now and into the future.