Photo courtesy of SBS.com – Albany WA
Western Australian gardening personality, author and “The Forever Project” advocate – Chris Ferreira and Bushfire Safety Consultant – Rohan Carboon, in conjunction with the Torbay Catchment Group, held a Workshop on Saturday, 26th May at the Bornholm Hall that discussed the overall best practice for property layout, design and retrofit, mitigating threats to fauna and flora, managing dieback, fuel load management, managing weeds and understanding AS3959 rating of your home and garden plus, most importantly, fire safety tips and strategies.
The Event was well attended by local residents and other interested parties, especially after the week Albany and the surrounding Districts experienced what with fires and damaging winds.
“The Forever Project” is a proud local West Australian business.
They are a multi-award winning organisation dedicated to inspiring and empowering community to work towards a sustainable, happy and prosperous future.
With an outstanding reputation as a leading community education organisation, that includes a team of WA’s best known and most respected sustainability experts, The Forever Project has established a position of excellence in the development and implementation of innovative educational events and project programs.
A challenge that Chris Ferreira accepted was to show how an ordinary bloke could transform an ordinary house into an inspiring sustainable home using nine key strategies!
Chris explains the nine key strategies in relation to “The House that Chris built”!
- Create a clever house and garden– we transformed our home so that it doesn’t guzzle water, leak nutrients, swelter in summer, shiver in winter and need an air conditioner to be comfortable (we symbolically dumped the old air con in the recycling skip at the start of the challenge!);
- From Red to Black– we haven’t received a bill from Synergy in over 4 years;
- “Drought proof” garden ready for summer– we slashed water use by 50% by installing rainwater tanks, waterwise gardens, greywater systems and other important water saving devices;
- Protect our rivers– we have turned our gutless sand into amazing and wonderful soil so it no longer ‘leaks’ water and nutrients into our waterways;
- Natural air conditioning– with carefully chosen trees and shrubs we have managed to keep out the summer heat but let in the winter warmth;
- From famine to food – we have created a wonderful food garden for the family including fruit trees, vegies, herbs and chooks; Green is Good– we have received real estate opinion showing that our green improvements have increased the value of the property;
- Embrace the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle – we recycled and up-cycled as many materials as we could in the house and in the garden;
- Make the garden the real Play Station– we created an inspiring landscape that will drag the kids out from in front of the TV and into the garden.
For more information on this and other projects check out their website – https://theforeverproject.com.au and you will not be disappointed!
The Forever Project – “Inspiring and Empowering Sustainable Communities”
