Invercargill Eco Fest looks to expand
The Eco Fest in Invercargill could be expanding as more people become involved in the environmental festival.
About 100 people attended the festival, which was held at the Invercargill Workingmen’s Club on Saturday.
On display were resources for people to live more sustainably, as well as crafts and goods made from recycled materials.
Eco Fest organiser Jenny Campbell said the festival had grown considerably, with about 30 stalls set up in the Corinthian Convention Centre upstairs at the club. This year the festival themes had been expanded and new stallholders were at the event, creating a different dynamic, Campbell said.
People generally had a better perspective of how they looked at the environment, she said.
Next year, the organising committee would look to keep up with the diverse lineup of stalls and workshops, Campbell said.
Workshops were held on beekeeping, landscaping and using scrap materials, and youth-led organisation Generation Zero spoke to people about the proposed Zero Carbon Act.
The event, which was previously run by the Invercargill Environment Centre, which has closed, was now being supported by the Southland branch of Forest & Bird, Campbell said.
With a change in committee members, younger volunteers had come on board and given the festival a nudge in the right direction, she said.
Campbell thinks the popularity of the festival was growing because people who had concerns about living in an environmentally friendly way were starting to take action, she said.
Two people who had come down from Dunedin were visiting the festival to get ideas for setting up a similar event in their city.
More people were looking at ways to produce their own food, recycle or save energy, Campbell said.
The most popular attraction of the day was Ezra the donkey, who was giving children rides in the car park, she said.
Several people had been interested in the workshop on beekeeping, with some travelling from as far away as Te Anau to attend, she said.