About us

Who we are

Roots and Rivers Collective is a Northern Rivers-wide permaculture and food security network, operating on Bundjalung Country. We work as a connective layer across the region's food system — a place where people, land, skills, tools, events and practical knowledge can find each other, and where dormant community capacity gets converted into food actually growing in the ground.

Our reach spans the full Northern Rivers: Lismore, Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, Nimbin, Bangalow, Kyogle, Casino, Tweed, Ballina, Murwillumbah, Dunoon, Clunes, Federal, The Channon, Uki and the country in between.

Who it's for

Everyone growing food here, or wanting to.

That includes farmers with fifty years on the same soil and market gardeners in their first season. It includes people running cattle, cane and macadamias alongside people running food forests and no-dig beds. It includes community gardens, schools, co-ops, landholders with a paddock they no longer use, and households with a backyard and some curiosity.

We're not interested in the tired division between conventional and regenerative, old and young, farmer and grower. The knowledge held by people who have worked this landscape for decades is irreplaceable, and the energy of people coming into it now is exactly what the region needs. Most of the useful things happen when those two groups are in the same paddock.

What we're not

We are not here to replace anyone. The Northern Rivers is already full of community gardens, food co-ops, Landcare groups, market gardeners, seed savers and neighbourhood networks doing extraordinary work — often with very little support and no time to spare.

Our job is to make those existing nodes easier to find, easier to join, and easier to resource. We're the connective tissue, not another organisation competing for the same air.

Why it matters

The 2022 floods made the fragility of our food system impossible to ignore. Seventy-two per cent of the Northern Rivers land that flooded was food-producing agricultural land. Major supermarkets in Lismore stayed shut for more than four months. What held in that period wasn't the supply chain — it was neighbours, community kitchens, gardens and informal networks moving food to people faster than any coordinated response managed.

That capacity is real, and it deserves better infrastructure than goodwill alone. A region that can grow more of its own food, share the means of producing it, and stay connected between crises is a region that recovers faster and lives better in the meantime.

How we're structured

Roots and Rivers Collective is co-incubated by two organisations.

Seed Northern Rivers is an umbrella body supporting more than 30 environmental and community initiatives, and the organisation behind the Mullum Gardens EcoHub. Seed brings deep regional roots, operational infrastructure and years of experience delivering community food and sustainability programs.

Ethos Global Foundation works on ecosocial adaptation across the Northern Rivers catchments, bringing strategic capacity, partnership networks and governance support.

Both are registered charities with ACNC DGR1 status. The Collective is working towards incorporation as an independent not-for-profit entity.

A note on our name

We began life as PermaBrella. As the network has grown beyond its original scope, we've become Roots and Rivers Collective — a name that says what we actually are: rooted in this place, connected by these rivers, and collective by design. Same network, same people, same purpose.