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by Rusty Miller
Consciously building
up stores of 'social capital'...
By Rusty Miller
Although Byron is a great place to lay back and enjoy a good
holiday, the nature of this community is anything but relaxed
in its concern and efforts to maintain the special style and
environment visitors and locals value so much.
The Byron community is composed of an exeptional broad spectrum
of people and endeavours in motion. If you have been here
before you will notice that it is even busier than your last
visit because of an increase in visitation, population and
development.
Stopping high rise...
We do not have a monopoly on this coastal situation but
our electorate is most articulate and active in its mission
to retain the valuable social and natural amenities we have
been blessed to inherit.
The Battle for Byron,
a controversial film by David Bradburry, was only one of the
ways the community used to stop high rise development in Byron.
Pierre Geslin
Photo-montage
Our total body of people, knowledge, and experiences, thoughvery
diverse, have united here and been successful in stopping
high rise, halting Club Med, and opposing a mega-dam in Fern
Gully rainforest. In last September's local election we said
goodbye to a 'pro development' council and elected a green
one which is commited to 'community consultation'. And importantly,
it has been a pro-active and a fun community empowering exercise.
Producing a type of
'social currency'...
Mural on the Byron Bay
Community Centre
Byron is the epitomy of what social scientist Eva Cox in
her 1995 Boyer Lectures defines as a community that is consciously
building up its stores of 'social capital', that is the processes
between people which establish networks, norms, social trust
and facilitate co-ordination and co-operation for mutal benefit.
The Byron community in its positive mode sees that people
and their interelationahips can produce a type of social currency
that is more valuable than the 'financial capital' you are
most likely taking a holiday from.
May you enjoy the true wealth of the Byron Experience; in
the sunrise at Cape Byron, in the people you meet, in the
crystal clean water and on the leafy trail that winds through
the rainforest.
Rusty
Miller
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