We protect what we love

FRIDAY . 28. 10. 22.

Good morning and happy Friday!

Your weekly update from the FWP team is a little late today - time seems to be flying by, and the season of summer races, sunshine and hopefully a bit of R&R is fast approaching! This week a bunch of the FWP crew will be toeing the start line at UTA - a big good luck and HAVE FUN to Flick & Tom who will be enjoying a scenic 100 kilometres around the Blue Mountains.

Down in Victoria, we are gearing up for a State election in just a few weeks. Big issues on the agenda are the cost of living and the future of extractive industries such as native logging and offshore gas exploration. We'll touch on this later in the newsletter, and give you some pathways to get involved.

And finally, in some FANTASTIC news, you may have seen that we were the very grateful recipients of The North Face's Explore Fund! Read on for more info as to how you can join us for this exciting initiative.

Enough waffling from me - let's get to the newsletter! Enjoy some highlights from Purpose, some exciting updates and ways to get involved in protecting the precious mountain ash forests of Victoria.

PURPOSE CONFERENCE

A meeting of hearts + minds

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Purpose Conference in Sydney/Warrung. I was very lucky to win a pass, which was a huge bonus for FWP, as we spend our pennies very wisely so it wouldn't have been possible otherwise! Directed at the purpose-driven business community, the two-day conference covered a range of themes, including Nature x Tech, Impact Capital, Climate Tech & First Nations Wisdom.

Some of the highlights from the two days were...

Sea Forest

Seaweed will change the world

Sea Forest is a Tasmanian-based company that is growing Asparagopsis, a delicate, pink seaweed that when added to animal feed, dramatically reduces the amount of methane they produce. You may have heard about seaweed stopping stinky cow farts, and like many, you may have been a bit sceptical.

At Purpose, Sam Elsom, CEO of Sea Forest, talked us through the details of SeaFeed, and how this magical, natural and abundant product can help the agricultural industry significantly reduce its carbon emissions. Animals whose diet contains 0.2% SeaFeed will have methane reductions up to 98%. Not only will this help reduce agricultural greenhouse emissions (which contribute 16% of global emissions), but Asparagopsis captures carbon (through photosynthesis) from the atmosphere, which makes up 40% of the seaweed's biomass. A native 'weed' that grows quickly, draws down carbon and reduces the amount of methane in our air? That's a win, win, win!

Last Sunday, Australia joined 121 other countries in signing the Global Methane Pledge. This voluntary commitment brings together countries to reduce global methane emissions across all sectors by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030. As part of this, the Australian Government will fund projects to accelerate the commercialisation of seaweed feed supplements for grazing livestock, such as the work that Sea Forest is doing.

You can read more about Sea Forest here, and check out their collaboration with menswear label M.J Bale, which is collaborating with Sea Forest on the world's-first commercial trial of carbon-neutral wool.

The War on Plastic

Ending single use in our lifetime

One of the other stand-out presentations was titled 'The War On Plastic', with an amazing panel with the founders of baresop, ZeroCo, Seabin & Great Wrap. These businesses have all identified an issue in how we use and consume plastic, and through years of hard work, iteration and dedication, are now some of the fastest-growing businesses in Australia. Supported by Birchal, an equity crowdfunding operation that allows everyday Australians to invest in the brands they love, these brands are becoming part of people's everyday lives.

Great Wrap is the world's first plant-based, compostable plastic wrap, made from potato waste! Then architect, now co-founder & CEO, Julia Kay, was disgusted by the amount of pallet wrap used during the construction process and set out to create a plant-based alternative. Fast forward several years (and lots of hard work!) and now Great Wrap is available for home and commercial use. Their 'Great Mate' dispenser is a high-end upgrade from the usual crummy cardboard carton and means you'll never scrunch the cling-wrap again (maybe!).

ZeroCo wants to give single-use plastics the flick, and judging by their success over the past few years, plenty of us are keen to join them. Founder Mike Smith was frustrated by the disgusting amount of plastics on remote beaches worldwide in 2018, and returned to Australia to solve the problem. Fast forward to 2019, and ZeroCo launched a crowdfunding campaign, raising $251,000 for its first production run. By the end of 2019, ZeroCo had become Australia's most-funded Kickstarter project of the year, raising $742,000 from almost 7,000 Australian households.

It's a simple but very effective solution - you buy a 'forever bottle', made from recycled ocean plastic, and then refill using reusable pouches which you post back. Products range from shampoo to toilet cleaner, and basically, mean you never have to lug a 5k box of laundry powder home from the supermarket again or throw out another plastic bottle of dishwashing liquid!

In your lifetime, you'll use approximately 3,109 single-use plastic bottles... what a waste! If you're not already signed up to ZeroCo (or a similar reusable supplier), what are you waiting for?

And last but not least - Seabin. Co-Founder Pete Ceglinski brought the energy, with an insightful presentation into the story of the Seabin Project, and how data has changed the direction, and potential of Seabin. Mid-presentation, he disappeared from the stage, re-emerging as Jackson Dynamite, his LA ater-ego, who is making cleaning up our oceans sexy amongst the uber cool LA crowd.

There is plenty more to come from Purpose Conference, with recordings of the sessions and insights from the keynote presentations and insightful discussions. To get an idea of who's who in the purpose space, check out the list of presenters via the website, and follow along on socials. It's a great resource for anyone considering joining or starting in the business-for-purpose space.

WE'RE GOING ON CAMP!

And we want you to join us 🙂

We were super excited to find out last week that we were one of the three lucky recipients of The North Face Explore Fund! In its inaugural year, the Explore Fund will help to create access and drive equity in the outdoors by funding organisations around two themes: creating a community of new explorers and protecting the environment.

The project we put forward for funding is a multi-day camp that combines trail running and positive environmental activism. Camp FWP will combine movement and education, with leading athletes, scientists and activists mentoring participants to become more engaged in advocating with their communities to protect wild places.

We are excited to bring this to life in 2023, and would love for you to join us! Spots will be limited, with several scholarships available. FWP Members will receive early invitations to join the camp, so to avoid missing up, sign up to become a FWP member today. We will bring you more details in the coming month.

⛺️ 🏔 ⛺️

THANK YOU FOR NOT CHOPPING HERE

A new campaign from Patagonia AU/NZ

This week Patagonia AU/NZ launched their new campaign, Thank You for not Chopping Here, focusing on putting an end to native forest logging and supporting the creation of the Great Forest National Park in Victoria's Central Highlands.

Victoria’s Central Highlands is home to majestic mountain ash forests, which are on the verge of collapse.  These forests provide habitat for one of Australia’s most endangered species, the Leadbeater’s possum.  Very little of this wood actually goes towards timber products - most of it ends up as waste on the forest floor, or gets milled into wood chips for paper pulp. This great video from Greens member Ellen Sandell demonstrates how wasteful the industry really is.

Patagonia are hosting a range of screenings of ‘End to an End’, a short film following friend of FWP Majell Backhausen on a 275km traverse of the proposed Great Forest National Park. You can check out the trailer here, and head along to a screening in November at one of the many locations along the east coast. We hope to see you there!

🌳 💚 🌳

That's it for today, folks! It's almost the weekend, and we hope that you have some fun adventures planned, whether it's type 1 or type 2 fun! A huge HIGH FIVE goes out to anyone who's participating at UTA this weekend, whether you're running, crewing or volunteering. I'm sure it will be a wonderful weekend of heart-warming, trail community goodness. If you're not heading along and are looking for some trail inspiration, our Trail Chat with Michelle Merlis is now up on YouTube.

Until next time, play it safe and keep it stoked out on the trails and as always, thank you for taking the time, for wild places. ✌🏽

Hilary & the For Wild Places team

CHECK US OUT ON INSTAGRAM

UPCOMING EVENTS

16/11 Trail Chat with Erchana Murray-Bartlett | register

20/11 Great Forest Trail Marathon, Healsville | register

11/02 Trail First Aid Course, Arthurs Seat | register

25/02 takyana Trail, Waratah, Tasmania | register



We acknowledge the the First Nations people who have been custodians of land, waters and culture for tens of thousands of years. We pay respects to First Nations Elders past, present and emerging.

This email was written on Wadawurrung Country, of the Kulin Nation. To these people, we pay our respects.

Always was, always will be.