It was a pleasure to deliver a keynote talk at the Environment Institute of Australia New Zealand conference in Perth last week. Addressing the conference theme of “collaboration’ was quite a challenge – so many stories from across the 1000 km and 23 years of the Gondwana Link: what do they all add up to, and what are the important bits we can all learn from? Key points included having a low tolerance for competitive behaviour, the importance of earning and keeping trust, the difficulties of removing structural barriers to involvement so we have true equity between large and small organisations, the depth of local knowledge and the cost efficiency of local networks. Collaboration is a complex topic and gets more complex as we try and work through integrated approaches (ecology, cross-cultural, community, economy). So I was delighted to also present about the CSIRO ‘Bright Spots’ project analysing our experiences. Fresh eyes are so important! More coming soon from that work.