Nature is home.
Nature is me.
Nature is all of us.
About our storytelling strategy
Our collective movement knows how to tell stories. We know stories move people in ways facts alone cannot. They make the abstract concrete, the distant personal. The question is: which stories actually move people to act?
The land, water, and communities we protect are inseparable from who we are, where we come from, and the futures we're building together.
This directory exists to capture the lived experiences of our coalition members: the real stories behind policy positions, the personal stakes in our advocacy work, and the visions that keep us organizing.
Your story matters. Whether you're an organization sharing your work, recounting a moment that changed your relationship to place, naming the specific forces threatening your community, or painting a picture of what thriving looks like—we want to hear it.
Choose Your Storytelling Platform
FLICKR
PRIVATE SUBMISSIONS
Choose your storytelling platform
What is a story?
For our collective movement, a story is:
TRUE - Rooted in real experience and evidence
SPECIFIC - Has details we can see, hear, feel
HUMAN - Centers people and relationships
PURPOSEFUL - Connects to our larger goals
How do I write my story?
Every good story has rhythm. Research shows that stories are more effective when they:
Name specific human/institutional villains (not systems or climate)
Use forward vision instead of loss prevention
Replace economic ROI with lived experience
Apply nature metaphors that disrupt subject/object divisions
Do not use passive voice
What you care about + your expertise + these variables = Stories that result in action.
Download our story-craft worksheet to see examples.
Now that you have the tools to craft your story, let's explore what we're gathering this month.. Each month, we spotlight stories that connect to current opportunities in conservation advocacy.
Theme of the Month: The Right to Restore, The Right to Repair
The AtB4A Coalition launches our story directory with the theme, The Right to Restore, The Right to Repair. For this month’s theme, tell a story that iterates how conservation protects our right to restore, and our right to repair. Take this any direction that makes sense to you. Timely nature, justice and health opportunities that respond to this theme include but are not limited to:
Stories about environmental restoration and stewardship. E.g., how the Bureau of Land Management Conservation and Landscape Health Rule (AKA Public Lands Rule) allows people to restore toxic or degraded ecosystems.
Stories about connecting with loved ones or navigating interpersonal relationship conflict in nature. How nature is an active partner in helping us repair our relationships with each other.
Stories about the renaming of parks, lakes, mountains canyons, and other public land and water. How place renaming has or could repair social injustices.
Stories about how historic and cultural interpretation at public land and water has helped repair social injustices.
Stories about how Tribal Nations have defended their sovereignty and right to environmental stewardship.
Stories about how our rights are being undermined and violated.
Stories about the reductions in federal workforce (RIFs) and divestment from environmental stewardship, and our right to jobs in, and resources for, environmental stewardship.
This theme is active through the end of November.
Observances such as holidays or awareness days also serve as good storytelling prompts. Consider contributing a story in response to an upcoming observance.
Ready to share your story?
