Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.
When I think about what makes someone care about the natural world, it rarely begins with statistics or graphs. It begins with a moment. For me, it was an encounter I had at age 12 with frogs in an Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a fascination that turned to urgency when I later read about an oil spill near where I had stayed. Since then, I’ve come to believe that connection, not just information, is what stirs people to act.
During a recent conversation with Jessica Morgenthal for her Resilience Gone Wild podcast, we spoke about that idea: how empathy for one being can lead to concern for an entire ecosystem. When people talk about “a herd of gazelles,” it’s abstract. But tell the story of one gazelle — its habits, its struggle to survive — and suddenly it matters. We often relate most to individuals, not collectives. The same is true for human stories of conservation. When Mongabay reported on a community in Gabon fighting to protect its forest, it wasn’t primarily the data that moved the environment minister to intervene; it was meeting the people whose lives were entwined with those trees and realizing how their stewardship sustained a healthy and productive system.
I’ve found that even the smallest connections can shift perspective. When snorkeling, I’ve encountered a fish that swims beside me and seems to remember me when I revisit the site the next day. We don’t share language or biology, yet it feels like there’s an unmistakable recognition. So if we can connect with a fish, surely we can connect with one another.
That belief has shaped my journalism. Facts establish credibility, but stories create meaning. In a world where trust in science and media has increasingly faltered among many audiences, storytelling offers a bridge: a way to make people feel before they analyze.
The same principle applies beyond conservation. Whether we’re talking about communities, politics or technology, change begins with empathy. We don’t protect what we don’t love, and we don’t love what we don’t understand. The task, then, is to help people see the world as alive, particular and personal. And to remember that even one small connection can open the door to concern, and sometimes, to action.
Banner image of a Bornean orangutan by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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