Paula is a writer and artist interested in the effect of people on place. She lives with her family in what she calls her “little farm” in Australia’s Blue Mountains. Her place has been developed using permaculture thinking and the family now enjoys a substantial amount of home grown food.

Paula has a BA degree in languages from the UNSW, is an accredited Interpreter and translator and has a background in journalism. In earlier years she held employment with the national broadcaster SBS and has contributed to different publications including the Indigenous newspaper, The Koori Mail, and the Spanish eco-design magazine Ecohabitar. But her greatest lessons have come from her upbringing and having lived in different countries while growing up.  When she moved from Australia to Spain as a 10 year old she soon saw how the children, living in an area of such highly productive small land holdings, had a very different understanding of life from the one she had experienced while living in Australia.

Carob trees and vegetables at the front of Paula’s  home constitute a productive and fire protective garden

As a visual artist, Paula applies her aesthetics to edible, fire protective landscaping, to show that these productive safe gardens can be as beautiful as any.

Paula asserts that our Australian suburbs are an ideal setting for retrofitting for energy descent and localising our food supply closer to home:

“And we can start in the garden. I think gardens should evoke fertility, life, and wellbeing.  Gardens can be both ornamental, and productive. When the flowers in my garden turn into fruit it doesn’t stop there.  It is fruit that can be the cause of a conversation over the fence, fruit that gets given or exchanged, -and the beginning of a community that is sustainable and safe.”