30 Earth Month Heroes

That's young Angelo will Ike, Sylvia, Agnes, and Jean-Michel (some of my Earth Month Heroes) at the designation of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument at the White House in 2009.

Welcome to the first post on my personal webpage.

Last year I challenged all of conservation Twitter to an online lovefest called the Earth Month Hero Challenge.  I think we need to do it again.  We could all use a virtual group hug.

Let me explain.

Earth Day is April 22, which makes next month Earth Month.

I’d like to invite you to participate in a Twitter hashtag campaign for the entire month. The purpose of this campaign is to bring some attention and praise to the people who are doing great conservation work. I’m calling the campaign #30EarthMonthHeroes.

Participation is easy.

STEP ONE
Starting on April 1, post a tweet about someone who you think is doing great work to protect the Earth or the Ocean, either someone you know or someone you would like to know. Say something nice, upload a photo, link to a story or a video, tag them, and use the hashtag #30EarthMonthHeroes.

STEP TWO
Each subsequent day, thread one additional tweet about someone you admire. It’s important to thread your tweets, so that by the time you get to April 30, you will have one single long thread. If you thread them properly, throughout the month, as readers find your tweets they will be able to easily scroll up and down to find the people that you’ve been tweeting about. If this works the way I hope it will, even the people who find your tweets as late as April 30, will still be scrolling back to your tweets from April 1.

THAT'S IT.  THAT'S THE CHALLENGE

If all goes as well as last year, we reach new audiences on a large scale and greatly impact the conversation about conservation, while building a twitter following for ourselves, as well as the people who we call out as Earth Month Heroes. Plus it’s nice to hear from your colleagues when you are doing a good job.  Especially now.

It’s really that simple.

This is meant to be voluntary and fun, and it’s a chance to say thanks to the people in our line of work who dedicate their lives to making the world a better place – so no pressure!

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section and I will try to answer them.

How do I thread my tweets?
Ask Twitter.

Does my Ocean Month Hero need to be on Twitter?
If you are picking 30 people that inspire you, chances are one or more are not going to be on Twitter. Don’t let that stop you from recognizing them! If you can’t tag them, you could try adding a link to their website or to something they wrote.

Does my Ocean Month Hero need to be alive today?
Again, you should recognize whoever you want.  Last year several fictional characters were tagged.

What if I need to miss a day? Or a week?
That’s fine. The idea is to post one Ocean Month Hero per day, but if you can’t post over the weekend, post three on Monday. And if you only get to 14 over the course of the month, those 14 people will still be happy to be recognized by you.

What if I'm not on Twitter?
You can use Facebook, Instagram or any other social media account that lets you tag people and use hashtags.  It's more about bringing attention to the people who inspire you, and you can do that in many places, not just Twitter.