In 1982, a group of people in a low socio-economic area of Melbourne with high rates of unemployment decided to create jobs for themselves. And not just jobs but “meaningful employment”—they wanted alternatives to the mundane jobs that seemed to be all that the current economic system could offer them.

This group found a patch of land that no one wanted, that had been quarried and then filled with rubbish, capped and left for dead. There was a polluted creek running alongside it, enormous power lines overhead and it was surrounded by factories with barely a tree in sight, covered in invasive weeds. They asked the local council if they could grow some vegetables on the land and start a recycling scheme to create small income streams for themselves. Council said, “Sure, why not?”

Then this group looked around at the local schools and saw that the kids didn’t have much to do, so they invited school groups to come and learn about what they were doing. And the kids loved it. They got to have their hands in the dirt, run around outside, and not be trapped in a classroom all day learning how to be successful little capitalists. In time, the people had to build a cafe to feed the hungry kids, convert an old building into a place to run programs from, and install some composting toilets, mostly because it was the cheapest and most achievable option.

In the early days there was experimentation with worm farms, bicycle recycling and alternative technology. Chickens arrived, there was pig that bit the Lotteries man hard on the butt when he handed over a cheque, several sheep, and endless discussion about what the real vision of CERES was going to be. Meanwhile, creek clean-ups happened, trees were planted, a food co-op was started, solar panels were installed and more and more kids came to learn about this place which was somehow coming alive. Simultaneously, continuous advocacy occurred at all levels, to keep the land in the hands of the community. And people continued to disagree about the long term vision for the land, but somehow they just got on with it all anyway.

Skip forward 35 years to today, and CERES is the largest deliverer of environmental education in the state of Victoria. We run social enterprises including a cafe, plant nursery, grocery, and other educational programs and services. We employ 150 people and welcome several thousand volunteers every year. We have green technology displays and hundreds of partnerships at all levels of Government, private industry, across Victoria and interstate.

So how did we empower the community? How do we continue to do so?

I would say that we didn’t empower the community—that the people didn’t empower themselves. Lakota elder Tiokasin Ghosthorse said recently, “We won’t save the earth, Mother Earth will save us.” To me, this neatly underlines the anthropocentric view we so often have, that puts us at the centre of everything. The environmental movement to date has been largely about how we can save the planet. Yet it’s this view that puts us at the centre of everything, that has caused the multiple crises we are facing, and that allows us to continue to use the earth’s “resources” for profit.

As so many people have observed, we are witnessing the last stand of an old story—or at least we better be! But a new story has not yet properly emerged, so we are at a place between stories, which is a very powerful place to be. Young people can probably see that even more clearly than me or any of my generation. They are bringing in the new story—we are still trying to let go of the old.

So how do you find that power in a new story and use it for good? I’m not going to sit here and tell stories of how the previous generation empowered themselves and brought about change. They didn’t. It was given to them by the land.

For sure, a lot of things have grown up and out of this little patch of desecrated land in Melbourne—we now have a global reach. And people worked hard. They continuously fought to have this land, to have a vision realized (even if they never really agreed on exactly what that vision was). But if that early group of people didn’t have a relationship with the earth and an enormous love for it that grew up out of the soil, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Love for the earth as sacred is an ancient story, and is possibly the one story that has led universal empowerment for communities far beyond capitalism.

So to empower a community, I would say simply, first find your love for the earth. That’s what I see in the story of CERES. And as that beautiful Australian Indigenous elder Uncle Bob Randall said, “The land owns us.”