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Liana Cornell on zoom
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Liana Cornell, actress-activist, on her new Eco-TV series

In real life, the actress Liana Cornell –co- star of the Amazon and Sky TV series Britannia – is living off the grid in Cornwall, UK. She is a strong woman – not afraid to turf her boyfriend out of the house while she carries out our zoom interview. And she plays a strong woman in Britannia – a Roman epic set in 43AD and featuring a number of powerful female lead roles. Recently the 31-year-old sat down to discuss her new eco-documentary series, Refugia, with off-grid.net.

The remarkable pledge Liana has made to herself is that all her acting revenue beyond what she actually needs to survive is ploughed back into causes she believes in – including environmental activism – either through her films, of which more in a moment or the activities of the people she makes the films about.

“I’ve done a lot of environmental work throughout my life, and there was this gap between people doing the work and people who could donate. That was where Refugia comes in.” Its a 3 part series on WaterBear which she wrote, shot and presented herself – made to support and draw attention to some amazing environmental initiatives (until now in Australia but in future around the world).

“I wanted to create something to pull back the curtains and show how they are doing the work – truly good work.” She said. “They don’t have the time and funds” to get more funding.

As well as publicising the characters in her eco-series, she also finances them. you see her presenting cash to individuals she meets during the series. “We have helped to buy back a rainforest in North Queensland and replant it; create a seaweed forest and (sequester) Carbon (by growing) hemp.”

“There are 25 different things we have done with that money.” She is particularly excited about Hemp, which has long been illegal but is now being rehabilitated in the new pro-cannabis climate in America, although not in the UK.

Off-Grid living

Liana is from a well-known acting family in Australia, and was brought up in a coastal rainforest town, with much of the property off the grid. “I enjoy the idea of being off-grid – when we had the fires in Australia my family (in different houses) still had electricity and our own water.”

She told me she had found herself in the UK at the start of lockdown last February 2020 – and would have decided to stay anyway – even without the shoot for Britannia series 3. Her significant other used to live in a van, and he now shares the smallholding they found together in a hidden part of UK’s wildest and most remote county.

Liana’s voyage of discovery filming Refugia was also a voyage of self discovery. “I lay in a sleeping bag with a knife on my chest, coyotes and mountain …

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June 2, 2021 No Comments
Coral eggs meet sperm deep under water
Water

Great Barrier Reef – Coral Spawning

The world’s biggest living organism, the Great Barrier Reef, has held its annual Coral Spawning event, with trillions of eggs and sperm simultaneously releasing into the ocean making the underwater world more akin to a snow globe. We have exclusive video footage.

Some of the most extreme and beautiful off-grid locations in the world are around coral reefs – in New Zealand Australia and the Bahamas, as well as Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific. but its rare to get shots of the way these reefs grow – known as spawning.

Spawning events and egg production revealed a peak breeding season from November through May, which coincides with temperatures below 30 degrees C. Noticeably fewer spawning events and smaller clutch sizes occurred during the warmer months (30-31.5 degrees C) of June through October. Within the spawning season, egg production increased weakly leading up to the new moon and decreased after the full moon.

About 600 types of coral can be found in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and all of them come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Despite looking like plants, corals and colonies are very small animals called coral polyps which are clsoely related to jellyfish and come in two common types, hard and soft.

Hard corals act as a building blocks for the Reef that form when colonies of coral polyps produce limestone skeletons to support themselves. In most cases, a hard coral consists of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of individual coral polyps living together as a colony.

Soft corals are flexible because they lack a solid skeleton which means they are often mistaken for plants. Instead, they are supported by tiny limestone spike-like structures called spicules.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s biggest coral reef system on Earth stretching 2,300 kilometers from the tip of the Cape York Peninsula to Bundaberg. It is Queensland’s tourism asset with around two million visitors experiencing the reef each year!

For more information on holidays to Queensland go to

https://www.queensland.com/…

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November 13, 2017 No Comments
Energy

Aussies shocked by energy price rises

Rising electricity prices in Queensland are forcing a soon-to-be retired single woman to become 100% energy self-sufficient, storing renewable energy onsite.

Homeowner Liza Jackson is going off the grid on Bribie island in Queensland. And she is one of many residents leaving the grid behind. With a population of 20,000 Bribie is the smallest and most northerly of three major sand islands forming the coastline sheltering the northern part of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia.

A survey revealed 75% of islanders are struggling to pay their bills, while 31% are sacrificing groceries to compensate.

Ms Jackson has already spent $6500 on 16 solar panels for a lean $38 quarterly saving and is working toward buying battery backups to fight the rising costs.

“I’ve lived in north West Australia where the prices are astronomical, but I’ve been gobsmacked by the prices of power in Queensland,” she said.

“With the rising costs, I’m looking at myself becoming pensioner and thinking ‘I’m not going to afford this’.

“If you believe that (prices will plateau), then you believe in the tooth fairy… there’s no limit on these private companies buying wholesale and on selling to customers.”

She’s not alone, according to the Bribie Island Neighbourhood Centre’s relief and budgeting volunteer Michael Daniell.

“(Electricity) is getting out of control… it’s increasing all the time and wages and Centrelink isn’t matching it,” he said.

“Young couples with children are the hardest… food, electricity and a roof over your head are the major priorities and sometimes it can mean going without one of them.”

Mr Daniell said he helps struggling bill payers manage their debt through widely available schemes the public often aren’t aware of.

“We do have a Home Emergency Assistance Scheme; if you’re a current concession holder we can help you claim (part of) your bill.

“My advice is, don’t ignore debt, ring up the (power) companies and work out a plan.

“They don’t know how much debt you’re in; if you just call and tell them your circumstances they can work something out.”

The state and federal governments have recently been in a war of words about the current state of electricity prices in the Sunshine State, with each party blaming the other.

“Since the Palaszczuk Government launched our Powering Queensland Plan, forward wholesale contract prices for 2018 have fallen by more than 16%,” Acting Energy Minister Curtis Pitt said.

“Between March-May this year, Queensland had the lowest wholesale prices of any state, and we remain the lowest.

“Due to the broken state of the National Electricity Market, wholesale electricity prices have increased across the board but much more in every other state between 2014-15 and 2016-17 than Queensland, which includes: 177% in South Australia, 131% in New South Wales, 119% in Victoria, 103% in Tasmania and 77% in Queensland,” Mr Pitt said.

This comes after Queensland’s wholesale electricity prices hit record highs and was …

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August 11, 2017 No Comments