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The Building Hume’s Future Together program commenced in Goulburn Mulwaree and parts of that program are being rolled out across SE NSW through our affioliation with ZeroSE, see Partners. In Goulburn Mulwaree our program aligns with the Council and NSW Regional plans, such as Blueprint for a Resilient SE NSW.
The program is designed to help grow jobs and the economy; regenerate the environment; build the community and improve the supporting infrastructure. The first project launched under the program was “Grow Goulburn Mulwaree Farms and Gardens” saw the Landcare Regenerative Grazing and Farming Group launched and that is helping farmers transition to regenerative and sustainable farming practices to secure food security and to deliver carbon sequestration. The same project has built a pilot sustainable garden that captures water from a culvert in a series of swales and ponds and uses that water to support the planting of more biodiversty. The next step is to take this project across Run-O-Waters to achieve a significant cooling effect and to take it to other neighbourhoods using the most relevant and suitable models, based on our "Model Sustainable Gardens" concept. The above inititives are designed to help Goulburn Mulwaree residents and farmers to adapt to rising temperatures and changed rain patterns in a way that will deliver improvements to the environment , create new jobs and strenghen the community. This project will help with one of the most important climate mitigation strategies identified in the Council’s Climate Change Risk Assessment and Adaptation plan, which is to increase the number of trees, bushes and other vegetation to help keep temperatures down in built-up areas. This includes moderating temperatures around domestic dwellings and in public spaces. For farmers the adoption of Regenerative practices is already leading to pasture improvements. This is being achieved by improving the soil through the planting of multi-species pastures, that, in turn, sequesters carbon. Regenerative Grazing is outcomes based and not prescriptive. It addresses the pressing need to reverse the loss of carbon in the soil. Since European settlement Australian agricultural soils have lost about two-thirds of their carbon content. But as soil-carbon expert John White has reported, a 0.5 per cent increase in soil carbon on only 2 per cent of our agricultural lands would more than offset all of Australia’s emissions from all sectors. The program is being implemented through the Community Sustainability Hub Other projects
in the planning phase that are running with our partners under the direction of ZeroSE include :-
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