The membership of the America the Beautiful for All coalition stretches from the Marianas to Maine, Alaska to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We are the largest, most diverse coalition of its kind to ever exist in the United States.
Last week, 170+ conservation, climate change, and community leaders from across the United States spent three busy days in San Juan, Puerto Rico at our coalition’s New Era, New Leaders conference.
This conference was not your usual conservation conference. I moderated a panel called, “Tools to facilitate values-first conservation when power dynamics make it hard” and we talked about some of the things that make it difficult for people of color to get into and stay in the conservation movement. We shared stories and strategies on how to build community and to organize and uplift our ideas and power.
Our coalition is growing, and you are invited to be a part of it. It can be intimidating for newcomers to figure out the best way to plug into something new, so here are 6 ideas for new coalition members, or potential new members, to get involved with our coalition in support of creating a more just and equitable conservation movement:
- Join the coalition email list. The simplest way to participate in our coalition, and the one that requires the least effort, is to navigate to the America the Beautiful for All coalition website, scroll to the bottom, type your email address, and click subscribe. We send out a monthly newsletter with links to actions you can take in support of our coalition partners’ efforts, conservation news and updates, as well as upcoming events.
- Join and share our social media. The America the Beautiful for All Coalition is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (also known as X) and LinkedIn. Please follow our accounts and share our posts when you see them. We also have 250+ partner organizations and we encourage you to follow and share them, too!
- Join a workgroup. Our coalition has six issue-based workgroups (Urban Parks & Greenspace, Ocean, Wildlife, Public Lands, Freshwater, and Legacy Lands) and one cross-cutting workgroup called Priorities, Projects, & Campaigns. Each of the workgroups has two co-leads who coordinate our coalition partners’ activities. The management of each is somewhat decentralized from the full coalition, and the best way to learn about each issue is to reach out to the co-leads (click on their bios on the website) to request more information. The different workgroups use different tools to communicate with one another, including google groups, Whatsapp, email, and regular meetings. Each co-lead can recommend the best way for you or your organization to participate.
- Endorse our policy agenda. As I write this, we are about 4 weeks away from Election Day in the United States and regardless of the outcome, there will be a new president on January 20, 2025. In 2023 and in 2024 our coalition put forward policy agendas to outline our conservation priorities for the Biden administration. We plan to do the same for the next president. During our conference in Puerto Rico last week, all of the participants had the opportunity to share those ideas and we will be collecting them and sharing them regardless of the election outcome. If you join our coalition email list, in the coming weeks and months we will share how your organization can help set the tone for the next administration’s conservation efforts.
- Come to Our Events. The New Era, New Leaders conference was the culmination of two years of organizing and relationship building across our movement. Along the way we held two Washington, DC fly-ins, where advocates from across the country walked through the halls of power to call on the Biden administration and US Congress to take just and equitable actions to protect nature and people. During the fly-ins, our coalition partners helped tell these stories, which include Tina Sablan from the Northern Mariana Islands successfully advocating for a Mariana Trench monument management plan and Tess Hostetter calling for the protection of Alaska’s D-1 lands. Throughout the course of the year we also held smaller events across the country to organize, advocate, and learn from one another. You can learn about these events by joining the e-mail listservs and working groups.
- Donate to support our coalition partners. We have over 250 coalition members working across many facets of conservation in our country. We encourage you to support them and their participation in our coalition. You can also support the management and coordination of the coalition by reaching out to our development team. For example, you can support travel for our members to advocate for their issues in Washington, DC, or send them to training and capacity building workshops.
The direction our coalition takes in the next few years will be determined in the next few weeks. It’s not yet clear if we will spend the next four years fighting off all the terrible ideas found in Project 2025 or if we will be looking to build on the conservation success of the Biden administration. Regardless of the outcome, our coalition is committed to growing a conservation movement that reflects the diversity and experiences of America, and we invite you to be a part of that.
