Most people in Queenstown know – or at the very least know of – Alexa Forbes, who is joining Queenstown Writers Festival this year as one of our interviewers. We couldn’t think of anyone more perfect to talk to sustainability communicator Kate Hall, otherwise known as Ethically Kate, about her new book Better, Bolder, Different.
Alexa’s varied career, especially her current role as a councillor on the Otago Regional Council, has been informed by a lifelong interest in sustainability. This is what she has to say about herself:
“I’ve been interested in some version of what we now call sustainability all my life. I was brought up to appreciate and nurture nature and understand how it nurtured me.
“After a career that spanned music, journalism and then public relations, I went through a period of dread and concern about the environmental impacts of my way of life and that of the community I was part of.
“So I retrained, sold my PR business share and kept learning from and eventually facilitating tertiary education around sustainable practice. This led me into elected council roles where I hold and work to promote and policy-ify environmental values.
“I live in Frankton in a rustic house on a tiny section with a wild lawn, vege gardens, bees and a long suffering partner.”
Alexa challenges conventional ways of thinking. She doesn’t accept that things have to be the way they always have been. She is smart, curious and quite a lot of fun too.
The same can also be said of environmental activist and educator Kate Hall, who believes everyone can do something small to live a more sustainable life. She will be sharing her ideas on what we can be doing every day to make a difference and relieve our own eco-anxiety.
Come along and see these two vibrant women discuss the daily decisions we make about clothes, food, transport, sleep, stuff, wellbeing and relationships and how they can be tweaked to benefit not only the environment, but also ourselves and others.
BTW, if you Google Alexa’s name it comes up with a photo and says she is a British rower. We cannot explain this. Maybe Alexa can.
– Alexa Forbes will talk to Kate Hall on Saturday 12 November 2022 in an event supported by Sustainable Queenstown.
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