Interview with Cea Higgins: Coastal Director at Coastwalk
Welcome back to the Planet Presents blog! This week, I was lucky enough to be able to interview a member of a nonprofit recently added to Planet Presents, Coastwalk! While Planet Presents tries its best to accurately represent nonprofits, we believe the best way to get to know an organization is connecting with members of that organization and hearing from them first hand.
Cea Higgins currently serves as the Coastal Advisor for the Board of
Directors of Coastwalk/California Coastal Trail Association - the
only statewide nonprofit with the mission to promote, preserve, and
complete the California Coastal Trail. Cea is currently developing
programs that increase opportunities for under-represented
communities to experience and steward the Coast and the Coastal
Trail. She previously served as the Executive Director of
Coastwalk/CCTA.
*This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity
Q: What is Coastwalk's mission, and what steps does it take to execute that mission?
A: Our main purpose is to ensure that people have access to the California Coast, and that the California Coast is preserved both for responsible enjoyment, but also for the natural habitat. So it's about finding this balance about experiencing the Coast responsibly by learning how to be when you're out there, and also what you can do and how you can take part in preserving our Coast.
I'm going to go deep here for just a minute. When they passed the Coastal Act, which was back in the late '70s, early '80s, the idea was, how can we protect the Coast from overdevelopment? There was this idea, the California Coastal Trail, which would be a trail that would go through both urban and natural areas that would extend from the border of Mexico to Oregon. And the reason why that seemed to be the connecting piece, the trail, the ribbon of protection, which I like to call it, is that where you have trail, you have public access. Where you have trail, you create corridors for wildlife to pass through. Where you have trail, you don't have development. But you can also have trail in urban areas, which allows people to walk from one location to the other on the Coast and lower their carbon footprint. It's like the coastal trail is our non-motorized vehicle, to be able to protect the Coast. Each section we complete is part of that ribbon of protection for the California Coast.
Q: How did you get started at your organization? Did you have a passion for the environment when you were younger?
A: I would say at least three quarters of my life. I started very young as quite the radical Earth-first environmentalist. Then I realized that I really had to understand policy to be able to be effective, because what really works are two things: education and good legislation. I went to law school and I focused on ocean policy. I was with the Surfrider organization for quite a while because I also surf wherever we are, I was their policy coordinator and also their volunteer coordinator. But then this opportunity opened up to work with Coastwalk. The reason why that was so near and dear to my heart was because the founder of Coastwalk, a man named Bill Cordham, who I consider one of the greatest coastal environmentalists of all time, happened to be my mentor when I first started at a young age, wanting to learn how to be effective in preserving the Coast. So, yeah, I've been at it for a while.
Q: How could a $10 donation help your organization? $20? $50? $100?
A: Well, to me, a small contribution represents an investment in the organization. It means that someone's going to take the time to learn about what we do, maybe talk about what we do. Every penny helps. For example, right now, where most of our funding is going is that we are the chosen coordinator by the Coastal Commission for California Coastal Cleanup Day. Any penny, any donation right now, helps us get supplies for that day, helps us get the word out, helps us deal with all the fees that we have to deal with and the insurance and everything. We do that one major day, but all year long, we do education and marine debris education, and specifically in schools. So any donation that can help us fund being able to reach as many school-age kids as possible to talk with them about how they can be a part of the solution to reduce marine debris, that would be something that money would go towards and help us be able to do.
It's super hard to get funding for education programs, which is sad. We rely on private donors and every penny counts. Plus, if you become a member, that gets you engaged, that gets you listening, that's getting you talking to other people. It's not just the money, it's the investment of yourself when you give to our organization and showing what you support. Then, when we're trying to effectuate positive legislation in the state, we could say, look at all these members. Look at all these people that gave us $5. All these people really care, so listen.
Q: What are Coastwalk's most urgent needs, in terms of supplies, support, etc?
A: Well, right now, as we're focusing on Coastal Cleanup Day, we really need volunteers, we need beach captains, we need beach cleanup supplies. Those are our immediate needs because that's coming up in September. And that's a really big push for us that we try to engage as many people on one day, and it's a Citizen Science Day. But you're always looking for support because another part of our mission is bringing people out to the Coast, and on these, sometimes two day, three day, sometimes just a day, sometimes seven day, coastal trail experiences, we bring people out the Coast. And we try to keep our cost really, really low so that as many people as possible can participate. We do that by people donating food or donating time, helping leading a walk. Our donations help us keep those coastal trail experiences. A lot of times we can bring inner city and urban school kids out to the Coast. Anything that's donated helps to offset that cost so that they can come out, enjoy the Coast, but learn how to enjoy it responsibly. So low impact, how to behave when you're out there and what to take away from it. So all of the above.
Q: How are individuals, especially kids and younger people, able to help or engage in your organization without donating money?
A: Well, I mean, younger people have are much more savvy with social media than some of us older folks who are in the organization. And so being able to share our message, putting our message into their words and telling other people about it, I think is a wonderful way that they can help, just by following us on our Instagram. I know Facebook is old people, but we do Facebook. But just basically sharing the word and then taking time to review our website. We have a whole mapping portal where you can actually go to any part of the California Coast. Any contribution where you can go pick a section of trail that's there, you go out and you walk it, and you say, this part of the trail has been eroded, or, hey, there's this new little section, or, here's some really cool photos from this section of trail. They can get engaged by actually going into that mapping portal and picking some areas of the trail and then providing us with information, because we're trying to get people the most up to date information on how they can be on the coastal trail. Another way is by volunteering for any of our cleanups, or volunteering for any of our coast-walks in your particular area. We always need help on the day of when we're serving people food on the campground or just leading a hike that they know that they're really familiar with. Those are the ways to get engaged that don't cost any money.
Q: How does Coastwalk involve and engage with the local community?
A: What we try to do in every county is to really engage the local community, because it's the local community that's going to go and speak to their representatives about the different issues. I mean, we are really a grassroots organization, and so we cannot take this whole statewide approach and expect to accomplish anything. It's really a matter of the local community in each county, in each coastal jurisdiction, of which there's 150 along the California Coast, that they get engaged and say, ‘Hey, you know what? You really need to take care of this segment of trail. It's falling apart, or you need to make this connectivity here, or we need an organization to restore this section or do some native planting in this area, or, you help us as the local jurisdiction, fund bringing a group of kids out here.’ We engage the local community in each coastal trail segment jurisdiction to be the advocate for that particular segment of trail and whatever that segment of trail may need.
Q: What’s an environmentally-conscious gift you love to receive and/or give?
A: Well, I have two. One is having that little kit in your car with all your reusable stuff. So your bamboo utensils, your little to-go containers that are reusable, the washable and reusable shopping bags, your metal straw. I give those little kits to everybody and say, Here, this is your way to contribute by having your own little kit and reusing it and not using all that awful plastic stuff. And then the other one I love, and it's a reach, but stay with me, is a sewing kit. Because we are just not recycling our clothing, and people don't really think about the waste in the whole clothing industry, and also the toxins, the byproducts, the types of material to use, and all the labor violations, just all kinds of stuff. I really like the idea of giving a sewing kit and talking to people about, fix it, don't throw it away, or take a couple of old different pieces and put them together into this new piece that nobody else will have. I give sewing kits a lot, and I give those little portable environmentally friendly kits.
Q: What advice would you give to a young person who wants to work in your field?
A: It takes a lot of passion, persistence, and to hold on to the long-term strategy. You never really have giant victories when you're working in environmental conservation. You have a lot of small victories along the way and setbacks as well. My advice is keep your eye on the long term goals and then develop strategies to get to those goals, like your sets of skills that you're really good at. Are you good at community engagement? Are you good at education? Teaching people about what's going on? Are you more that person who's really diplomatic and knows how to speak with representatives? So I say, keep your eye on the long term goals and don't let the little setbacks get you because it just takes a long time to make something good happen, but it does happen. So that would be one thing.
The other thing is get involved with your local government. Start going to their meetings. Start finding out what's going on locally. Practice speaking. Go up and make public comment and get comfortable and get them familiar with you. Show them that you are passionate about what you're trying to do. They absolutely love young people coming to meetings and speaking and talking because this makes them look like they're actually interesting, and sometimes they really are. If not, you can force them to be. So get involved with government and don't give up when you lose a battle, because it's a long term game.
Q: What is the best way for people to get to know Coastwalk better?
A: Volunteer with us. Come to a beach cleanup, come to a coast-walk. That would be really hands on. But follow the news that we're putting out there because we're constantly putting out news about different items that are happening at the Coastal Commission that affect local jurisdictions. Just become engaged, informed, really dive through our website and interact with it because it's got a lot of really good information on there. But most importantly, contact us, volunteer. There's a volunteer at a place listed there on the website. If you fill out that form, we'll be contacting you immediately.
California Coastal Cleanup Day, California’s largest annual volunteer event, will be held on Saturday, September 21st this year. Visit this link to be a volunteer or site leader, and visit coastwalk.org to learn more.
