How to Start a project

The following guides have been developed by the Department of Conservation and are a good place to start when you are looking to undertake a conservation project.

Guide for community conservation projects

Advice about establishing, maintaining, improving and evaluating community conservation projects.

Project principles. Successful community conservation projects tend to reflect three key principles - planning, partnership and learning.

Get started. Find out how to get your project off to a great start by doing some initial thinking and research, identifying who to involve, finding out what people think and holding a project meeting.

Set your direction. Once your group is established, there will be a point at which you will need to do some planning. With a good plan your activity will have a greater chance of being effective. 

Work well as a group. Once you have decided to form a group to start a project, it is important to look at how the group will run and how members will work together.

Monitor and evaluate progress. Having ways to check on your progress (monitoring) and take stock of where things are at on a regular basis (evaluation), are important for your group to function effectively.

Assess the impact of the project. All programmes should take into account the impact their proposed work will have on natural, cultural and historic conservation values.