Year: 2021

You might be wondering what are transition town after hearing the term. The whole idea of building these towns is to be locally active, economical, and sustainable. We are here to help you know more about transition towns, particularly in Auckland.

 What is a transition town?

Transition Towns are diverse communities of numerous types. The goal of these transition towns is to share their knowledge and make their communities more ecological. It’s about cities, villages, and regions working to become less energy-dependent and more sustainable.

Local food production and consumption are among the transition initiatives. Supporting mass transportation and bike and ultimately, create plastic-free zones are a few of their agendas. These communities also host zero-waste, trash reduction, recycling activities and workshops, and environmental projects at local schools.

History of transition towns

Finn Mackesy and Niki Harre, two Point Chevalier residents, co-founded Transition Point Chevalier in 2008. They became members of the community because they were concerned about climate change. Today it’s encouraging to see how many Point Chevalier people are now active in Transition activities in the area.

Significant measures taken towards a higher quality of life in Auckland’s transition towns

A set of rules has to be followed to sustain the genuineness of a transition town. Below is a list of the same.

Shared gardens

On the first Sunday of each month, residents collaborate in each other’s organic gardens. The purpose is to promote urban agricultural production and healthy gardens.

Exchange of things

Food, time, and skills are exchanged at the Point Chevalier Community Garden, located at a local community center. Implementing community-supported agriculture is a part of the journey.

Planting trees

It was simple to get the Auckland Council’s approval on a local public reserve where the community orchard is being built to plant lemon, avocado, and banana trees.

Purchasing group

Transition Point Chevalier Purchasing Group is a group of 20 people who buy from local producers and distributors to reduce food travel. This process is an alternative to traditional supermarket shopping. Natural, local, better deal, less packing, reliability, and value are all factors in selecting products. Purchasing is a crucial aspect of building a more environmentally conscious society and caring for one another.

Collaboration of community and school

Transition Point Chevalier collaborates with Point Chevalier School to establish a location for soft-plastic recycling; as a result, the amount of local plastic going to the landfill has decreased dramatically. A company like Enviroreel reuses plastic to manufacture wheels, wire covers, and garden curbing, among other things.

School working with community

To create a robust sustainability program, Point Chevalier School works with the community. Fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs are planted in school gardens, and students collect and prepare the food. The school reuses soft plastic, paper, and cardboard and regenerates food waste using worm farms and compost piles.

When the Transition network began in 2007, only a few towns embraced the Transition concept; currently, New Zealand has roughly 65 Transition Towns. Let us have a look at the journey of transition town in Auckland and its current state.

How did the transition movement start?

The notion was born during an innovative ecological course taught by English conservationist Rob Hopkins at an Irish secondary institute in County Cork in 2004. He moved to Totnes, Devon, a small market town, a year later to co-found the world’s first Transition Town. There are currently over 1200 Transition organizations in over 40 countries, so it isn’t simply a British trend.

Four main assumptions of transition towns:

Life with substantially reduced energy use is unavoidable; it’s better to plan ahead of time than be caught off guard.

The communities are currently unprepared to withstand the catastrophic energy shocks that will follow peak oil and climate change.

The communities must act as a group and move quickly.

The communities can develop modes of living that are more linked, more meaningful, and respect the biological constraints of our planet by releasing the collective brain of those around them to imaginatively and actively design our energy downfall.

Transition towns in other countries

A Transition group in Brixton, London, has funded £130,000 to build England’s first internal society power station atop a council estate, with 82kW of solar panels. Likewise, a Transition community in Derbyshire has established a food center, making it possible to sell food grown in back yards as an option to stores.

Issues in New Zealand

New Zealand’s population is steadily expanding. We can see that Auckland has long been renowned as New Zealand’s most populated city if we look closely. With the changing climate and the increased export and import of international items, the city’s role has faded. It is also known that New Zealand does not have its own power source and must rely on power cables borrowed from other governments.

As a result, Auckland people have taken a positive step. They have begun to participate in and become a part of the transition towns’ initiatives.

The growing trend of transition towns in Auckland

Residents of Auckland have begun to improve the environment and the economy after noticing the problems that people in the country face. Auckland’s transitional towns have been manufacturing and employing local products and using less transportation for a better lifestyle. These neighborhoods have started partnering with schools to help the city move toward a more sustainable future by participating in environmental projects and emphasizing reusing rather than waste. Such communities have decided to run various activities to raise public awareness about the world’s deteriorating ecological problems. These towns’ actions demonstrate that the program will be effective in the future.

Transition town communities are leading people to believe that, although the world’s climate has transformed, we are now staring back at climate change rather than forward to it.