If we want to fix the deeply rooted issues in Melbourne’s strained food system, first we need to make sense of it. How did we get here? What have we come to accept as ‘status quo’? And what’s standing in the way of meaningful collective action? In our latest report, ‘The Foodie City we need to become' our Food Systems Lead Dheepa Jeyapalan explores the challenges and abundant opportunities that lie ahead.

This October, urban design student Tiaré Murphy is hosting ‘Green Spaces in Unusual Places’, a dynamic pop-up climate hub in Melbourne CBD. Developed in partnership with Regen Melbourne and with the support of a City of Melbourne Youth Climate Action grant, the pop-up aims to involve the community in climate conversations and inspire action for a safer, cleaner and greener urban future. We spoke to Tiaré for a behind-the-scenes scoop.

As she continues to explore emerging governance practices in her role as New Urban Governance Lead, Caroline Sanz-Veitch has been spending time in the field, learning from community and cultures close to her (as well as some a little further away). Here, she shares some of the insights she’s started to glean — and the importance of understanding how different people and groups relate to a place. 

How can Greater Melbourne respect the wellbeing of all people? This was the prompt for a series of workshops we held in August to explore the role Melbourne plays – and more importantly, can play – in the global social, political and economic context. Alison Whitten, Regen Melbourne’s Systems Lab Director and facilitator of the workshops, reflects on what came out of them, and what comes next.

We often talk about “altitude sickness” in our work at Regen Melbourne, and for good reason – it’s complex! Sometimes though, the framing of altitude sickness has its limits (in the logical, vertical layering it implies). Here, Nicole Barling-Luke explores a reframing of this feeling, and asks: what if we started thinking about the jolt we receive when we’re overwhelmed with complexity as an invitation for seduction instead?

When it comes to regenerating our city (and planet!), we need to look at what makes us human: our ability to learn and transform, and our connection to nature and each other. In her first Field Note, Yasmina Dkhissi, Regen Melbourne’s new Adaptive Futures Lead, explores what it will take for us to work together, find common ground, and ask the right questions as we make our way through the climate and biodiversity crises.

There is no shortage of models for change in the world, so this year we’ve been reviewing how this plurality of approaches can coalesce into a coherent living strategy for Regen Melbourne’s work. Kaj and Nicole explain why we’ve chosen – of all things – a periodic table to help us make sense of our unique alchemy.

This September, thousands of Melburnians will come together to celebrate the second-ever Birrarung Riverfest – a three-week-long festival for our beloved Yarra/Birrarung River. With a huge range of events taking place up and down the length of the river, we speak to Carina Watson from Yarra Riverkeeper Association, the event’s masterminds, to find out what’s in store for 2024.