Casual get together with green minded folk.. Come along and find out about green things going in in Wanaka and what Sustainable Wanaka has been up to.
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Wanaka needs an abattoir?
John McRae on his farm, Glendu Station. Photo: Simon Williams
By Gina Dempster
Wanaka needs an abattoir. Not something I thought I’d ever say, but it all comes from wanting to eat local. In the last few months I’ve come across at least three local farmers who are keen to supply beef and lamb to Wanaka (and I’m sure there are more out there), but they have all come against the same problem. To get the animals killed and butchered, they have to truck them down to Invercargill.
And then, of course, truck them back as meat. It’s costly, and it takes away any advantage for them of selling their meat locally. Not to mention that it’s a bit ironic eating ‘local’ meat when it’s just been on a return trip to Invercargill.
At the Transition Towns talk in Wanaka last week, the 60 participants all had to envisage three things that we wanted for our town in the future. Local, nutritious food came up over and over again.
To get more local production, we need to make it economic for our local farmers to sell here in Wanaka. John McRae from Glendhu Bay Station, who attended the meeting, is passionate about farming without chemicals and producing
nutritious food. He has been inspired by successful farmers overseas, who supply meat directly to local customers (Polyface farm in America and the Ballanee Angus beef station in Australia).
John has committed to investigating whether a small abattoir could work in Wanaka. His vision is to use by-products in Wanaka (for soap or petfood), and deal with the residual waste responsibly, possibly by using a worm farm.
John would like to hear from anyone else who is interested in the project: wanakaorganics@farmside.co.nz
Welcome to our new site!
Sustainable Wanaka has officially entered the blogosphere! We’ve converted our website to a newer, more streamlined format on wordpress. With it we are now able to integrate our facebook page, more easily send you newsletters, update you more efficiently on upcoming events, and generally have a greater presence on the web. We’d love to know what you think, so please post comments below and tell us what new features you like or what isn’t there that you’d like to see!
Your Wanaka…2020 and beyond
Last week James Samuel from Waiheke Island came to Wanaka and gave a talk at the Lake Wanaka Centre. James has been involved in supporting the Transition Town movement in New Zealand Aotearoa. There are now 50 communities that have joined this grass roots movement and are committed to moving their communities away from oil dependence to local resilience.
Some communities are just starting on the journey while others have an active program of initiatives and growing support within their community for more action. Check out Grey Lynn 2030 or Project Lyttelton.
At the meeting, which was attended by more than 60 people James ran a session where we all picked a date in the future and wrote down ideas about what Wanaka might look like at that time. This is what they wrote…
