Local Environment Heroes has released its third season. Photo: Canberra Environment Centre.
The Canberra Environment Centre has launched the third season of its podcast Local Environment Heroes, which shares stories of Canberrans making a difference in sustainability. This season focusses on those in the food and hospitality industries and how they are improving matters on a systemic and individual level.
Season three comprises 10 interviews led by co-hosts Fiona Veikkanen – director of the Canberra Environment Centre – and local sustainability strategist Julie Bolton.
“This season, we’ve gone deep into food, talking to some amazing Canberra locals about what we eat, what we need to know about what we eat and how we can grow together,” Fiona said.
Stephanie Alexander met with kids from the Majura Primary School Kitchen Garden Program earlier this year. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Episode one discusses past guests and reflects on what the hosts have learnt. Episode two features Region’s food writer Lucy Ridge speaking about her involvement with the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, Canberra Food Co-operative and Southern Harvest Co-operative.
Kitchen garden specialist Phillipa Lawrence is guest on episode three as the hosts record the podcast live from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden at Majura Primary School.
Phillipa details how the school garden is teaching students about growing and cooking. The students at Majura were shortlisted for the National Kitchen Garden Program awards in the Level Up Your Veg category, which encourages kids to try new things and get more veggies in their diet.
Other guests include local regenerative farmer and award-winning author Sam Vincent, founder of catering company Queer Food Andy de Groot, and Naomi Lacey from Community Gardens Australia who shared this gem in her episode:
“A lot of people really rely on their community gardens to put that extra bit of food on the table for their families to share with friends and so on. But probably the main thing that people get – and we get this in our survey every year – and the main reason people participate in community gardening is for the community aspect. The food’s a bonus.”
Podcast hosts Julie Bolton and Fiona Veikkanen. Photo: Supplied, Canberra Environment Centre.
Co-host Julie Bolton said the series underlined the talent in the national capital.
“This season has blown me away,” she said. “We have an amazing array of incredible locals here in Canberra who are going above and beyond to educate and enable food for everyone.”
Another guest is Aaron Chatfield from Dreamtime Connections, a business which aims to share Indigenous culture and native foods with the community – especially schools. With his vision for every school to have a bush tucker garden, Aaron said “the earlier the better” to educate kids about native foods.
“Looking at healthy ways of eating, most of our native foods are considered super foods because of the abundance of nutrients… There’s so many [ways] you can tie a simple native food garden to the rest of the school curriculum,” he said.
The Canberra Environment Centre is a non-government, not-for-profit environmental education centre that empowers people to create a sustainable future for the Canberra community by supporting lifelong behavioural change.
Find the Canberra Environment Centre’s Local Environment Heroes podcast on its website, or any podcast provider.
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