The start of a new year normally fills me with hope, I am a person who enjoys lists and goals, so the opportunity to focus on these things tends to get me excited. And I was, until I fell asleep under a red moon and woke to a yellow sky and the smell of smoke from fires that burned 2500km and a sea away… and I cried. As a survivor of a natural disaster I know the fear all to well the people who ran from the flames must be feeling, I lost my home in the 2011 earthquakes which tore my city apart, but I was able to retrieve so much from that home which was broken but not reduced to ash. I fled the city like so many with a tiny baby strapped to my chest and spent time in the refugee centre a small rural town had equipped for the ‘earthquake refugees’. I think fire frightens me more than earthquakes though.

So what am I to do, first I cried, I am frightened not just for those people and creatures who are in the direct line of the flames but for the future of our planet. Blame is being apportioned to the left and the right (literally in the political sense), it is the greens fault for banning back burning, it is the liberals fault for not taking action on climate change. The reality is blame gets us no where, action does and I firmly believe climate change is a factor in the catastrophic fires that fill my throat with the taste for burning. I hope that the indigenous people of Australia are heard and the knowledge they hold is called upon and utilised. But here, where I am hope is not enough to ease my worry, I need to act.

Action can take many forms. It can be protest or life changes, it can be big on a personal level, getting rid of a car or small, eliminating a plastic based product; but each action can build to create a change not just in lifestyle but perspective. I think many of us find change some thing to be feared but if it makes the world a better place surely we should face.

So this year in addition to the many other challenges I’m undertaking (list and goal orientated remember) I’m setting myself a #365footprintreduction challenge (whipped up that hashtag myself), I will undertake to every day, do something that helps to either reduce my footprint or offset it. I’m a few days behind already so will have to crack into it.

WHAT I DID TODAY…

Today I went to a working bee in the reserve that boarders by house. I’m part of a project that is restoring the bushland along our estuary edge and today I watered, weeded and cut back invasive blackberry around a large planting with the local park ranger and local volunteers. The trees, bushes and flaxes planted are all natives, they will help to draw down groundwater in a place that is under threat from sea-level rise, they will draw down carbon and provide a home for native fauna. I don’t know about you but I feel this is a good start.

Earlier in the week I worked on expanding my vegetable garden, my neighbours don’t know it yet but I’m going to try and grow as much food as I can to feed both my family and theirs, more plant based food and less food miles.

I planted three berry bushes, more food and also more carbon draw down.

I sewed my own top, natural fibre, from thrifted fabric. No micro fibres finding their way into the ocean.

I’ll need to do a few extra things this week to catch up but it’s doable.