Celebrating and Publicizing your Efforts

As important as planning and doing the work is celebrating your project with staff, volunteers, supporters, landowners, and the community. Consider making videos, picture collages, written accounts, and art about your project, and displaying these to the community at public markets and events. Reward people for their efforts so they'll know they're appreciated. You'll keep people involved and this will probably lead to positive results in the future (Ritchlin 2001).

Let the world know what you have done and are planning to do. The British Columbia government maintains a media guide that you can search and download to find all the print, and online media outlets, at http://www.gov.bc.ca/mediaguide.html. Using newspapers, radio, and television to inform the community about your efforts is good for your project and helps more people appreciate the values inherent in restoration. You should also plan and publicize a field day to bring stakeholders and the public to your site. Consider making interpretive signs describing your rationale and efforts. Raising the profile of your project will strengthen support from government, the public, and funders, and will help everyone understand the value of intact natural systems (Ritchlin 2001).

Project Reporting and Extension

The results of your project need to be documented and shared. You will need to produce a report describing your goals, methods, costs, and interim results. A photographic record will be an important part of your report. Future prescriptions, including monitoring and maintenance needs, will also need to be described.

Your reporting is essential as a record of what happened at the site, for reference for those that come after you, and for future monitoring efforts. It will also help other practitioners learn from your experience. The information you generate can be shared with other restoration practitioners and the scientific community, through journal and newsletter articles, as well as at conferences. For distribution of information within BC, you may wish to contact FORREX (www.forrex.org), and determine which of their information venues is appropriate for your project.