maple street co-op

Cultivating News
From "Maple Street Co-op News", Jun/Jul 2004

Community Gardens: Reaping the Benefits – with Morag Gamble
by Mary Meadows

Morag Gamble is a born communicator, driven to pass on knowledge acquired during her many overseas and local programs. She is a passionate speaker who is ready to share her experiences – and, let's face it, her experiences in sustainable agriculture, sustainable housing and sustainable living are many and varied.

Morag was first exposed to the idea of living sustainably by her parents, who are conscious of growing food organically, following a vegetarian diet, not needing to use the medical fraternity, trying to limit use of fossil fuels, passing on grandfather's building skills, and are now giving of their time to Morag's brother's children.

As a student Morag studied Environmental Planning and Design as well as Landscape Architecture, but she questioned the narrowness of the teaching of these subjects. She felt she needed to undertake further study, so she undertook a course at the Schumacher College in England, world leaders in ecological thinking. In 2003, she was a resident scholar for the Design for Life permaculture course at Schumacher College – the first student invited to return to teach there.

This request inspired Morag to spread her knowledge just a little further. So, over a period of eight months, she presented courses, workshops and seminars in 15 countries – for the Barcelona City Hall, the UNESCO Master of Sustainable Development (University of Catalonia), the Department of Urban Agriculture and Sustainability Unit (Cuba), the Sustainability Summit (the Bahamas), and the inaugural Environmental Education Symposium (Green University, Korea), to name a few.

One of Morag's mantras is that knowledge needs to be shared and also recorded. Right now, in fact, Morag is working on a documentary about community food systems and urban sustainability. Among her many teachers are the people involved in ecological development in Ladakh in the Himalayas. She is co-founder of Australian City Farms, the Community Gardens Network (Qld) and the Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane. By now you may be asking yourself, "When does this woman sleep?" – a good question, as she is currently studying for a Master of Environmental Education.

Morag has been a resident at Crystal Waters for six years, and she and her husband Evan Raymond are in the process of building a small eco-house with a lovely wide verandah which overlooks one of the many dams at Crystal Waters. They run live-in permaculture courses at Crystal Waters. She and Evan won a national award from the True Food Network for catering organically for 30 people for two weeks; other event organisers had said it was too expensive to cater organically – they were proved wrong!

So how does all of this experience connect with Maple Street Co-op? The Co-op is hosting an educational talk by Morag Gamble on 8 June. Her presentation (with pictures) will be all about Community Gardens and City Farms. Some of these gardens are in Australia and others are in the many countries where she's taught. Morag recently attended a City Farm gathering on Stradbroke Island where city community garden folk shared their experiences, so she has all the latest news.

[From "Maple Street Co-op News", June/July 2004; published by The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny, Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.co-op@serv.net.au,
website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]