Welcome to the Transition Town Invercargill!

Transition Town Invercargill would like for Invercargill and Southland to be a resilient, truly sustainable, vibrant community of happy and healthy people who will live in a way that will protect the environment and ultimately enhance the quality of human lives everywhere.

Our aim is to support a transition of Invercargill - and Southland - communities into a lower-energy, lower-emissions future. To achieve this we wish to work with any individual, group or organisation with similar aims.

We're trying to catalyse a coherent response to the premise that we are entering an age of decline in net energy as fossil fuel supply rates peak globally, and that this will mean we have to reduce energy consumption. The need for this is reinforced by predicted climate change and the current global economic situation.

Our vision for Invercargill's future is:

The world Transition Invercargill sees for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and our communities in 2050.

“In Invercargill we are a well connected community of hardy, healthy people. We are supported by productive land due to our intelligent management of earth’s resources, where everything is viewed as a resource rather than rubbish. In the past we openly discussed the challenges of peak oil and climate change, which led to us taking purposeful action towards a common goal. Subsequently, we choose to power the globe without polluting the atmosphere, including using renewable transport/fuels”

This draft vision is open to comment. Email us at transitioninvercargill+vision@gmail.com

If you would like to join the group or get in touch with us please contact us at:

Email: transitioninvercargill@gmail.com

Phone: 03 217 8987

You can join the Transition Towns Southland Google Group which is mainly used as a mailing list by members. The old version of this group here will be inactive from Sept 2011 as Google has migrated everyone to the new group linked above. Historic posts and files are in a zip archive which you can request from transitioninvercargill+discussionarchive@gmail.com.

More info:

You can download our brochure here.

Outcomes and actions - Notes of outcomes and actions from public meetings can be found here.

Events- Regional calendar of Invercargill events

Learning Resources - a list of trusted places to go for more information.

Past events - List and details of our past events

Steering group minutes - Notes from meetings of the core group

Useful contacts - A list of people with special skills and expertise who can provide tips and advice on topics from organic gardening to alternative energy.

Our submission to Schedule 4 Stocktake proposal

Please email us if you have any suggestions for information you would like to see on this website or anything which you think Transition Towns Invercargill should take forward.

A Little History:

March 2009    “Energy Transition”
Series of films    We screened two films: “A Crude Awakening” and “The Power of Community”

April 2009    “What are Transition Initiatives” public talks
Participants of these events were encouraged to put down their ideas on the following four topics:
- What can I do?
- What can Invercargill do?
- What can the Government do?
- Other thoughts?
At the talks participants also played with four scenarios for the future:
- Business as Usual
- Technocrat
- Survivalist
- Re-localisation

20 May 2009    Open Space Workshop
"In a time of Peak Oil, how can we apply Kiwi ingenuity to make the most of Southland's natural advantages?"
Some great ideas came out of the groups.

Winter 2009    Workshops

Series of workshops were held to share practical skills:
- Natural Building
- The Psychology of Change
- Pruning
- Permaculture
- Who Killed the Electric Car

October 2009    350 Castles for Climate Action Event

Building sand castles, racing against the tide, to raise awareness of climate change

2010    People Resources List

A list of key contacts working on ‘transition type’ initiatives was put together.

2010    Transition Café was launched

The Bookstop in Glengary became  the host of Transition Café every Thursday afternoon.

September 2010

Spring Festival    Brought as many of the groups working on “transition type” initiatives together.

May 2011    Gap analysis

A gap analysis of the ideas raised in previous years, with existing ‘transition type’ initiatives.

Green travelling in the South of the South Island:

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