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Growing a Forest in our Backyard! by Beverley Paine In 1987, I watched a series on television about the threat of nuclear war and the polluting effects of nuclear energy and shortly afterwards read a book that detailed the horrors of chemical and biological warfare. The graphic images and disturbing statistics haunted me for weeks. This fear ran counter to my optimistic nature and I fought its depressive grip with a stronger weapon - the instinctive need to survive. What could I, an ordinary person with problems of my own, do to change situations decided by greedy and short-sighted governments? I knew I had to do something, but that it had to be an affirmative action that supported life. I also knew that I needed to make a difference where I lived and set examples my family and friends could emulate. An interstate holiday which included hundreds of kilometres of travelling through forested areas devastated by die-back from causes which were at that time unknown, convinced me that without trees life on our planet was fragile, if not doomed. Luckily, that year I was introduced to two wonderful organisations, Permaculture and Trees For Life. Both promoted life-affirming activities and operated at the grass roots level. Dedicated volunteers espoused sustainable visions and worked toward changing the way people think about the world. I became hooked, with enough positive action to keep my imaginative brain busy for years. Permaculture is wonderful as a concept but hard to achieve in practice. It demands a total change in perspective and challenges old values, beliefs and patterns of behaviour. I will never cease to learn about how to live sustainably! Trees For Life, on the other hand, gave me instant success and a feeling that I could, with minimal effort, make a real contribution. Thus began our odyssey into tree growing as volunteer growers for Trees For Life. Over the summer months our backyard would turn into a miniature forest as thousands of trees germinated and grew, often as tall as two feet, in boxes of plastic tubes. Every day we would carefully water, prick out weeds and remove hungry bugs. One year, a box of wattles disliked the mains-water, as it came directly from the Murray River, and showed signs of dying. We watered them separately with our precious rainwater and watched them thrive. Growing trees isn't a lot of work, but committing up to seven months of each year can be hard. If we left "our babies" with someone else for a week, we would worry. It doesn't take long for a forest to die at this stage of life. We've grown trees for farms in the south-east region, the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu Peninsula, and Kangaroo Island and many hundreds for our own property. In 1988, we purchased and began to revegetate a four and a half-acre property. We continue to plant trees and under-storey species about the property each year. As our forest grows taller and bushier, it begins to look healthier. Natural regeneration of ground-covers and small shrubs has begun. Our aim is to grow our own small piece of bush-land, which we can enjoy with friends, other forest enthusiasts and local wildlife. Although not yet mature, it is populated with many different species of birds, lizards and insects, as well as echidnas, possums and kangaroos. When the fear rises strongly within me, and I begin to feel there is nothing that we, as a species, can do to repair or stop the global damage we are causing, I go for a short walk, breathe in the fragrant eucalypt air and listen to the wind in the forest in our backyard. Join Trees for Life! www.treesforlife.org.au
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education in Australia. State and Territory governments are responsible for regulating home education and have different requirements, however home educating families are able to develop curriculum and learning programs to suit the individual needs of their children.
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network.
Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home.
In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and was a committee member for three years during which time she edited and produced the HEA Newsletter, Stepping Stones for Home Educators magazine, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications.
If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Homeschool Australia Facebook page.nor do they endorse or recommend products (other than their own) listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements.