Lessons to be remembered and carried forward

The forum provided an opportunity to share stories and, through these, to learn from each other’s experiences as coast carers.

While each story was different, a number of common lessons emerged during the telling that could be applied to just about everyone’s story.

These are the key points that we want to share, remember and carry forward in our future efforts as people who are passionate about caring for the coast:

• Be bold enough to tackle the BIG projects, and …
• break these big projects down into lots of little steps to help make getting things done less daunting.
• Recognise that we can overcome our limitations – as individuals and discrete groups – by networking, combining our efforts and collaborating with each other.
• Invite other individuals and groups to join us in projects and give them ownership of their respective roles.
• Increase our awareness and knowledge of ‘who’ there is to invite into our projects, and
• ‘think outside the square’.
• Explore the potential for a central coordinator or coordination group to oversee projects.
• Remind ourselves that the community is inherently interested in environmental issues, and
• grasp opportunities to leverage off this interest.
• Be persistent to see the big projects through.
• Do more to plan for our own demise by involving the next generation/s and introducing succession planning.