Sustainability Matters column from Stanthorpe Today

Welcome to the first edition of a new monthly column Sustainability Matters. The column will address issues related to sustainable development, that is, promoting projects initiatives and policies that deliver developments in our region that add social and economic value in ways that do not degrade our environment. Now more than ever, we need to elevate protecting the environment to the number one spot: without a flourishing environment there can be no economy that delivers outcomes that benefit our community.

The column will not dwell on the various environment and social crises that dominate the headlines. It will focus on our region and  getting on with the job of identifying and promoting solutions. A key element in achieving these solutions is to promote collaboration and cooperation, not ideology and division. The challenges our community face is substantial and it is only through cooperation that we can achieve the best possible outcomes for current and future generations.

The Granite Belt Sustainable Action Network (GBSAN) would like to thank the editorial staff at Stanthorpe Today for offering us the opportunity to engage our community and promote a positive, respectful and no doubt sometimes robust debate on the best path forward for our region. Change will always create tension, but we are committed to avoiding division and conflict so we can get things done and avoid distractions.

Formed four years ago, GBSAN is a community-based, 100% volunteer organisation that brings people with a common interest in protecting the future of our region together in project teams covering a range of issues that they identify as priorities. These teams cover issues as diverse as waste and recycling, protecting biodiversity, promoting nature-based tourism, regenerative agriculture, water security and climate change.

We interact with a range of stakeholders including local business, landholders, other community groups and the SDRC to promote solutions and action to pressing challenges. Although based on the Granite Belt, our geographic focus has inevitably encompassed the southern downs more broadly.

We look forward to highlighting a range of issues in the column with a view to stimulating debate and dialogue in the pages of Stanthorpe Today and beyond. To kick start the process, next month’s column will focus on water security and the need to urgently establish a broad, inclusive process that identifies practical, cost effective and sustainable solutions as we deal with increasingly unstable and uncertain weather patterns and the range of environmental, social, and economic impacts which will affect all residents of this region.

First published in Stanthorpe Today on 22 February, 2023.