and welcome to the first film of the 'living the change" series

For this series we're travelling around New Zealand in our van Bluey

sharing the inspiring stories of the people making change to a more sustainable way of life

In this first film we're visiting Andrew & Beth at their permaculture property in the bay of Plenty

I felt this void in my life, like there's something missing

so...When I was living in big cities,

I had to get away to connect with nature

but when i wake up every morning, I come here outside and I'm immediately in nature here

I don't have that void anymore, I've just got this instant connection and satisfaction

I'm Andrew Martin and today we're here in our permaculture property in the bay of Plenty, New Zealand

we've got 5 acres and

we've planted hundreds of fruit trees

which you'll see later

So this is our main garden

just close to the house in zone 1

so, yeah, we can say we've got a lot happening here

We've got, you know, lots of kale and

spinach silverbeet,

beetroot,

bok choy,

rhubarb,

zuchinni...

And, how I started this is

Basically a sheet mulch

so I've got some used paper cardboard

some manure

and some food scraps

and then build it up and then just put straw on top

and then just planted straight into it

and since then i just kept adding to the soil

with compost

So, yeah, I studied business

I was involved in finance

and more specifically in stock market

So we used to help people

manage their money

Whether the organisation are worth

we used to manage hundreds of millions of dollars for people.

I think i just did business

because it was one of those things that I thought would lead to something

And sure, I've been successful

in a certain regard

given us the wealth to be able to buy some land

And that sort of stuff.

But I felt myself being drawn into this materialistic world

Because all the people around me

had material possessions and it was all

this wanting and creating of attachment and

wanting, wanting more stuff

It can be contagious,

this consumerism

materialism lifestyle

I wasn't from that background.

I'm from a sort of a conservative sort of upbringing

Then all of a sudden I'm involved with,

you know,

guys that are driving luxury cars

living in an expensive house in the Sydney suburbs

A lot of guys are, you know multimillionaires and...

they were trapped into a system

and they thought an extra, you know,

10 or 20 or 30 million would make them happier.

And i worked out early on the paste that, that is not the case

And i think, a lot of people think that

the more money they have,

the more happy they're going to be

and it just doesn't work...

So, the idea is to

you know, have native plants mixed among fruit trees

so we've got you know, natives here

we got a tamarillo here

we got marno, [...], [...] and [...] natives

We've got a cabage tree here

This is a... uh

a pine nut

So those are really expensive nuts you get in the supermarket

This is one of those that takes about ten years to get any fruit on it or any nuts

So that's a long term project.

And then we've got, over here, we've got a

fig tree.

Which is fruiting quite nicely.

And another carob tree here

And then for the monarch butterflies

We've got a couple of swan plants which

they really enjoy real much, so we'd be lucky to see one

Here he womes now...

There was a lot of little moments of realization

I saw a few documentaries and movies

that were about some of the bigger picture issues

But when you're in the coporate world

And you're so busy with your life and achieving certain things

I'te hard to get off that train

Beth, my wife and I we sort of

had grown

over the corporate lifestyle

and the trap of

having and wanting more...

So we thought "Ok, let's just cut our ties from what we've known" and...

we'd been working for many years

We thought "Ok... let's just

...start a fresh"

So we'd been to New Zealand a number of times previously

And we just thought that's a great place to...

just start, we'll look at alternatives and live a simpler, more sustainable life

And just explore what's out there.

It was then the realization sort of hit home

I started to research more

read, you know, hundreds of articles and watch hundreds of documentaries and sorts of stuff.

Then i started to really understand : "Wow,

We got some serious issues here..."

And no one's really talking about this stuff

and it's quite scary

In here we got our chickens

We've got two breeds

we've got a brown shader which is these ones here

And then over here wev'e got Araucanas

And over here we have little chicks

that have just hatched in the last two days

You can see them down here

Ok the chicken yard here... You can see there's lots of weeds

and little shrubs and what not and...

We've planted some...there was about 10 or 12 feet Java bushes around the edge

To give them some protection. There's a walnut tree down there

But now you now the chickens love it. They can get in here

and hide under here and escape from predators

cause when we first had them, it was cleared

and we did have a problem with

eagles and hawks so we lost a few chickens

Because

that was easy for the hawks to see them, then come in and attack them but

Now we've...hadn't had a problem.

And you wan say there's little hidy house everywher for the chickens here

And they love it in here, they just hide through here and

over here, they even lay eggs in the hidy holes and her's one here

there you go

The first thing

We did is

simplified our life.

So once you simplify your life,

it frees you up to do a lot of other things. So we just thought "Ok,

What can we afford ?" and live within that limit

And that way frees you up a lot more, so...

Down sizing and tiny homes is excellent because it gives people the freedom

to...to make decisions about their lives

And that's sort of what we've done.

Wev'e consciensly made that effort not to live outside our means

And once you do that it's really powerful

so I always wanted a pond

and a lot of permaculture people talk about ponds and averyone has pond and

it's functionnal, it's got some great uses

So the idea is

I built this pond

to feed the beds which are actually under about 2 feet of grass at the moment

so what happened is i thought I thought like I'm gonna... I'll just have a go digging the pond.

And i started digging it out

and i just kept going for a couple of hours

and then after four hours i had a pretty big hole

it's probably a meter and a half deep

And then the second day, I just kept going and dug down

And...within two days about 4 or 5 hours each day,

I had a pond !

And then, I just...

got a liner

and put it in the pond and I couldn't believe my luck

The next day, it belted down rain

and then the pond was full

So in two days, I've gone from having no pond

To a completely full pond, which is awesome.

Apart from working on the garden, that takes a good part of my day

I also for a few blogs and have written a few books

and...

i also consult with business local government and community groups

on helping raise awarness around some of the big picture issues

So I do what they call as a vulnerability assessment

So once i analyse the data and identify gaps, then i come up with recommendations

For councils to move to a more sustainable model.

I'm fortunate... I'm in a position to be able to do this

A lot of people who don't have the luxury of being able to have time to...

research and...come up with ideas and solutions so...

That's what i'm trying to achieve

I saw a documentary

back in 2007 called A Crude awakening that was talking about the oil shock and

resource depletion on peak oil

And that really got me interested in the whole energy side of things

I read lots of books on energy and watched lots of documentaries and lots of articles

And it just seemed that permaculture kept popping up

as a solution.

Then I started to research permaculture and realized that

It was an integrated approach to how we're living

So at the moment, our current society...

It's a fragmented approach to living

So everything's compartimentalised or separated

whereas permaculture is a holistic approach to how we're living.

It integrates food,

environment

with your lifestyle

and taking care of, you know, people,

the planet

the natural resources

So I really...

That really...

hit home and I just really thought that was...

that was one of the solutions for moving forward

Over here we've got some grapes

and we've had these in for about a year and a half

and this is our first

decent yield of grapes as you can see here

and what we do

so we let the next door neighbour graze our front two pattics

and in return, I can go over to her place and I get some pine needles

which the blueberries love cause they love acidic soil so

I just sprinkle the blueb...

the pine needles around the blueberries so it helps mulch them

and help give them nutrients and

it also keep the weeds down.

So what i'm trying to... I do mow and i don't like it

but I just try to mow the paths also

Um... side the paths

So what we do is we leave all the...

all the weeds and the ground cover, there cause it...

You know, i hate to waste the resource

But what I like to do is just walk up when I'm out

in the garden and just pick a bit of

weed and just dropped around there

it gives it a... I gives a bit of a top up

and a bit of a feed

and then, you know, it just protects it from the

From evaporation and

you know, it's just consant soil building

So... a lot of people come over to our property and have a look around

they go "what about all your fruit trees ?"

"Do you get pests and stuff, like bird that eat them ?"

I say yeah sure

But we don't mind that you know

we were not here first and

you know we're a part of nature and

you know

We've had...we have comments from other people that live around near us

On the farms

and they say

they can't believe how much wildlife and birdlife is here

and their properties

just, you know,

a few hundred meters away

have almost no wildlife or birdlife

so

you know

we're attracting

birdlife and wildlife