Daryl Hannah spreads green gospel in Far North
A childhood encounter with a calf on its way to slaughter sparked a lifetime of environmental campaigning for Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah, who now lives in a house powered by solar panels, drives a vehicle that runs off used cooking fat and grows most of her own food.
Yet the 1980s pin-up still thinks she isn’t doing enough for the environment.
Hannah is in Far North Queensland for a two-week course on permaculture, which aims to mimic the principles of natural ecosystems in human settlements and agriculture.
She will also attend a conference on permaculture and the Mission Beach Film Festival, which has an environmental focus.
Speaking in Cairns yesterday, the star of Blade Runner, Splash and Kill Bill described going green as "simple common sense".
Hannah says she's searching for "a saner way to live in harmony with our environment".
Click here to watch video of Daryl Hannah's press conference in Cairns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6t6WoHMos0
"Obviously we are facing a time of great crisis, we are in the middle of probably the biggest extinction in recorded history, we are pretty much at peak oil and we have over-population," she told a press conference in Cairns.
"Permaculture is one of the best tools that I know in terms of understanding our place within that system and still do the things we need to do like grow food and collect water, and live in harmony with other species."
The course has apparently already had an impact on the star, who joked she had developed "an obsession with compost" after a visit to a community composting program at Mareeba.
Hannah said she had been an environmentalist for her whole adult life and became a vegetarian at age 11 after a disturbing encounter with a calf on its way to slaughter.
"I was petting this little calf at a truck stand and I was like, 'Mr truck driver what's this calf's name?’ And he was like, 'Veal, tomorrow morning at 7'," she said.
Permaculture teachers are apparently hard taskmasters - the course takes up to 14 hours out of the star's day - leaving her little time to explore north Queensland’s natural wonders, she said.
But Hannah hopes to visit the Great Barrier Reef during her time in Australia.
"It's a total dream of mine so I'm hoping I'll have a chance to do that," she said.
She will also present a keynote address at the 2010 Australasian Permaculture Convergence at Kuranda.
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Doing her bit: Hollywood star Daryl Hannah reveals details of her green lifestyle yesterday. Picture: Simon Crerar
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