When a Coastline Becomes a Community
On June 10th, we gathered at the Royal Society of Medicine in London for Celebrating Türkiye’s Coastal Conservation—the first international fundraising gathering of the Turquoise Coast Fund.
The intention was simple: to bring people closer to the locally led work protecting Türkiye’s coasts and seas, and to explore how a community living far from these shores could become part of their future.
Yet beneath that intention sat a larger question:
How do we turn our love for a place into meaningful responsibility?
From Türkiye’s Shores to London
Türkiye’s Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines hold some of the most extraordinary marine and coastal ecosystems in the region. They are also home to communities whose livelihoods, cultures, and sense of belonging have been shaped by the sea for generations.
Protecting these places requires more than individual projects. It requires long-term relationships, local knowledge, patient funding, and a community willing to stand behind the people doing the work.
This is the role the Turquoise Coast Fund has been growing into: finding locally rooted organizations with the insight and commitment to create change, and giving them the resources and support to carry that work forward.
London became a natural place to widen this circle.
Many people in the room had personal ties to Türkiye. Others came through a shared commitment to conservation, philanthropy, or the belief that local action can become a catalyst for systemic change.
What connected us was not geography alone, but care.
A Conversation That Became a Fund
Tijen Eren opened the story by taking us back to TCF’s early days.
What is now a growing conservation movement began with conversations, introductions, and shared commitments. A discussion over coffee about the environmental movement emerging across the Mediterranean led to a connection with the Conservation Collective network and, eventually, to the creation of a dedicated fund for grassroots conservation along Türkiye’s coasts.
I was reminded that institutions rarely begin as institutions. They begin when people recognize a shared responsibility and decide to act on it together.
Since 2022, that initial conversation has grown into support for 46 projects across Türkiye’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts.
Behind that number are relationships built over time. Our Executive Director, Özge Sönmez, has been central to developing these relationships with local organizations and bringing their realities, needs, and achievements into the wider TCF community.
Seeing this journey carried into a room in London felt like an important moment—not only for the Fund, but for the community forming around it.
Stories from the Coast
During the evening, I had the opportunity to share stories from some of the projects we support across Türkiye.
Along the Mediterranean coast, local organizations are protecting critical habitats, monitoring endangered species, and working with coastal communities to create more sustainable futures.
In Hatay, communities recovering from the 2023 earthquakes are tackling invasive water hyacinths while creating new economic opportunities for local women.
In Mersin, conservationists are bringing together scientific monitoring, education, and community participation to protect the critically endangered Fish Owl.
Along the Aegean coast, researchers and educators are taking marine science beyond universities and laboratories, bringing it directly into coastal communities and helping people understand both the pressures facing these ecosystems and the solutions available to protect them.
Different places. Different species. Different methods.
But the same underlying principle:
The people closest to environmental challenges are often the people best placed to solve them.
What they frequently lack is not courage, knowledge, or commitment—but access to consistent resources and a community willing to trust their leadership.
What Lies Beneath the Surface
One of the most powerful moments of the evening was a conversation between freediving world record holder Şahika Ercümen and conservation biologist Prof. Dr. Oğuz Türkozan, moderated by TCF Steering Committee Member İdil Üstün.
Şahika spoke about how freediving shaped her relationship with nature and allowed her to witness parts of the marine crisis that remain invisible from the shore.
Pollution may sometimes be visible along a coastline. But beneath the surface are ghost nets, microplastics, and marine debris that most of us will never see.
Her reflections stayed with me. They spoke not only to the condition of our seas, but to a broader human tendency: we often respond only to what is visible, while the deeper causes remain out of sight.
Conservation asks us to look beneath the surface.
Where a Journey Begins
Prof. Dr. Oğuz Türkozan took us back to the beginning of his own conservation journey.
As a student, he volunteered on a sea turtle conservation project through a local NGO. That first experience in the field ultimately shaped his academic career and led to decades of work protecting marine species.
He shared a letter written by one of his professors during those early years—a letter expressing confidence that he would one day become a scientist dedicated to protecting these species.
Decades later, he stood before us having fulfilled that possibility.
His story was a quiet reminder that meaningful change does not always begin with a grand strategy. Sometimes it begins with one opportunity, one mentor’s encouragement, or one experience that allows a young person to see the contribution they might make.
When we support a local conservation project, we can never fully know what we are setting in motion.
We may be protecting a nesting beach today. We may also be creating the conditions for the next generation of scientists, conservationists, and community leaders to emerge.
A Grant as a Seed
During the evening, we shared what supporting one locally led conservation project for an entire year can make possible.
It can help restore a wetland.
It can protect an endangered species.
It can strengthen the livelihoods of a coastal community.
It can give a local organization the time and capacity to turn an idea into lasting change.
Together, we reached our fundraising goal.
For me, the significance was not only in reaching that goal. It was in witnessing a community form around the intention behind it.
Some contributed financially. Some offered their networks, knowledge, or future collaboration. Others began a relationship with the Fund that evening.
Each contribution represented a different form of capital placed in service of the same coastline.
The Work of Building Trust
Fundraising is sometimes described as the act of asking people for money.
I experienced this evening differently.
It was an invitation to enter into relationship—with a place, with the people protecting it, and with the responsibility we carry once we become aware of what is at stake.
Financial capital matters deeply. But it becomes far more powerful when accompanied by social capital, knowledge, visibility, trust, and long-term commitment.
The London gathering was a reminder that philanthropy does not need to be transactional. At its best, it connects people to work that reflects their values and gives those values a path into action.
Returning to the Water
As Chair of the Turquoise Coast Fund, I often think about the distance between the scale of the environmental challenges we face and the scale at which we are each able to act.
That distance can feel overwhelming.
But locally led conservation offers another perspective. It shows us that change does not always begin at scale. It begins with people who know a place, care for it, and remain committed to it over time.
Our role is to help ensure they do not have to carry that responsibility alone.
The evening in London was one step in that direction: extending the community around Türkiye’s coasts beyond the coastline itself.
What began with stories from the sea became new relationships, resources, and possibilities.
And perhaps this is how a coastline becomes a community—not simply through the people who live beside it, but through everyone who chooses to take responsibility for its future.