Media enquiries: John MacFarlane : john AT livelocal DOT org DOT au
Phone: +61 02 9212 3366

live local began with investor and businessman Piers Dawson-Damer (in photo, with Dave Gravina at right), an Australian who was concerned about his children’s future and decided to do something about it.

"I stumbled across Peak Oil and spent a lot of time studying it, essentially hoping to prove that it wasn’t a big deal. But the more research I did, the more worried I became" says Dawson-Damer.

Piers moved his family to Tasmania seeking clean air, food and water and to be better positioned for the uncertainties of a planet wherein the energy demand increasingly outstrips its supply.

"I was inspired by the idea of Transition Towns and the work Rob Hopkins was doing and set myself to re-building local resiliency back  into the fabric of local Australian communities".

In 2008, Piers joined forces with Digital Eskimo, a Sydney-based design agency with a passion for sustainability. Digital Eskimo founder Dave Gravina shared Piers' concerns about Peak Oil. His agency designed the concept of a live local website that was an accessible, practical, fun and engaging way to re-localise and reconnect communities for the benefit of people and the environment.

live local is a website where people of all walks of life can post their stories, using words, pictures, and videos of how they improve and enjoy their communities. The "experiments", as they're called on the site, are as simple as riding your bike to work or mapping the location of publicly accessible fruit trees in a region – and as complex as creating a lush backyard garden or developing a bartering system.

All of these 'experiments' and more are already up on this site, and they have begun a life of their own as people upload, comment, connect, share and try each others' experiments out.

The site's purpose, Piers says, is to "re-discover knowledge and social bonds that have existed throughout human history and have only very recently been eroded".

"When you look back on it, our grandparents lived quite sustainably – they stayed in touch without Facebook or Twitter or email. But this doesn't mean that we can't use social media and digital communities to remind each other about how to live locally again," says Digital Eskimo Creative Director Dave Gravina.

"We want people to get out and be a part of their community first and blog about it second. Soon we'll have a timer on the site that will go off after 10 minutes and say 'you've been on the computer too long – get outside and live local!' " says Dave.

live local is free, easy to use, and it doesn't get in your face about Peak Oil or climate change. It's about neighbours, community and citizenship – which all happen to be things that Australians value and that can help better prepare us – and our children – for a sustainable future.

Media enquiries: John MacFarlane : john AT livelocal DOT org DOT au
Phone: +61 02 9212 3366