Youth in Mexico who share a passion for conservation and environmental justice are virtually connected through a website called Planeteando. In order to facilitate communication, cross-collaboration, and knowledge sharing efforts between members with similar environmental initiatives, a community of practice called TierraCamp was established in June 2022. TierraCamp aims to serve as a community for best socio-environmental communication practices. This effort will benefit the communities where TierraCampers reside through conservation efforts. In addition, members of TierraCamp will benefit from a structured and organized community of practice. As a result of this project, Planeteado will be able to provide an institutionalized and sustainable community of practice suitable for their members.
Through this project, we created the TierraCampers community, a grassroots community of practice of environmental defenders with a passion for communication. We started to form the community by contacting young environmentalists who are very vocal through social media and who live in different parts of Mexico.
We had monthly meetings over 5 months to get to know each other, our fights, our methods, and our stories. The goal of these meetings was to create a common agenda for an in-person summit, where our goal was to share experiences and methodologies for environmental communication.
We met in person in August 2023 in a 5-day camp in Veracruz, Mexico. Where each of us led a community-building activity and training in a specific communication methodology such as radio, videomaking, podcast, memes, puppetry, and more.
After the summit, we came back to our communities to share those experiences with our peers back home. With the learned lessons, we created new communication projects such as a short film, a boom of stories, and a script for a puppetry show, among others. Since then, we have been touring and sharing those new projects and kept in touch to support each other even from afar.
A new community has been created, the second cohort of TierraCampers who met in person in summer 2024 following a similar methodology. This method is starting to become a movement.
Project Outcomes
Future Work
TierraCamp is now in its second phase with new members of the group, project details can be found at https://planeteando.org/tierracamp
Reflections
The team notes that the following contributed to their success:
If they were to do this project again, some things that they would do differently would be:
The team shared lessons and resources that would be helpful for others who may be embarking on a similar project journey:
TierraCamp is currently a community composed of ten youths from both rural and urban regions in Mexico. The core members met through school and created an organization called Planeteando. They began by creating and featuring videos and podcasts on Planeteando.org. Later they developed a festival called TierraFest and were involved in the production of a documentary about wildlife conservation. While collaborating on the documentary, Planeteando members met young people doing incredible environmental work in Mexico. This sparked an idea to create a community where members share their conservation communication techniques via workshops. Planeteando established a community called TierraCamp in June 2022 as a peer to peer exchange platform. The core goal of TierraCamp is for members to share the socio-environmental communication techniques they utilize when advocating for their territories and engaging in conservation and environmental justice work.
The main priority of this project is to actualize a community of practice dedicated to collecting and sharing best communication practices, which will in turn amplify the conservation and environmental justice initiatives of TierraCampers. These communication practices may include script writing, podcast creation, videography, and more. Knowledge management and sharing may involve documentation, workshops, and peer to peer exchange style meetings. This community will inspire youth throughout Mexico to begin organizing in their communities. Moreover, it will unite members despite the geographic distance and differing conservation initiatives. TierraCamp is seeking insight and guidance from Thriving Earth Exchange regarding the formulation of a legitimate and well-planned community of practice which will take on members throughout Mexico and eventually Latin America. This legitimacy may provide opportunities for additional support, funding, and connections to journalists and those involved in conservation endeavors.
In August 2022, the ten TierraCampers convened in Mexico’s Nanciyaga Ecological Reserve for five days. During the gathering participants lead workshops to share communication methods they utilize in their communities. Topics included script-writing, how to create children’s games to teach science, and how to produce Twitter threads. Each TierraCamper then selected a personal environmental science communication project to develop within six months (e.j., Learning how to create a podcast). On Earth Day, April 22, 2023, they will hold TierraFest in Mexico City in collaboration with the museum, Colegio de San Ildefonso, and a cultural center from the Embassy of Spain, Centro Cultural de España en México. The ten community scientists plan to create an interactive space to showcase their projects, including how they are defending their territories and communities. This goal is open to evolve and will differ depending on the details of each project. For example, there are two individuals that would like to become involved in an interactive exposition that maps water. In each case they will try to obtain funding for these projects and to recruit experts to join in the development of the 6-month projects. One possibility may include the recruitment of experts through the newly formed community of practice TierraCamp.
Planeteando would like to institutionalize a community of practice called TierraCamp to engage conservation-minded youths in best communication practices. This community will allow youths to share their knowledge, expertise, and experiences which will result in the increased publicity regarding their environmental work, a connection between diverse conservation efforts, the sharing of resources, and a network between geographically distinct communities. The TierraCamp community of practice requires a solid foundation in order to promote the longevity and effectiveness of the community. This includes establishing priorities and goals, agreeing upon means of communication and consistency, membership, community activities, and more.
TierraCamp was established in June 2022 and members convened in person from August 22 – 26, 2022 in Nanciyaga Ecological Reserve.
Campers decided upon their individual community conservation or socio-environmental project. They presented their findings at TierraFest in Mexico City on Earth Day, April 22, 2023.
Raiza Pilatowsky Gruner (she/her)
Raiza is the co-founder and current director of Estudios Planeteando. She has a Masters degree in Environment and Sustainable Development from University College London and a Bachelor Degree in Earth Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She has graduate studies in science communication, disasters and climate change, and feminist geography. As a full-time science communicator, she has worked as host and producer in environmental communication projects, such as the documentary mini-series Bioguardianes and several podcasts like CliMitología, Los Grandes Problemas Socioambientales and Lo que haces cuenta.
Mónica Ramirez Calderón (she/her)
Mónica studied Earth Science and is now a PhD student in Geology. Involved in Science Communication since 2013, she does science communications TikToks and videos with Planeteando.
Fernanda Rodríguez (she/her)
Fernanda is a Biologist involved in science communication with Planeteando. She practices science communication at a science museum in Mexico City. She also belongs to PAUTA (Programa Adopte un Talento) where she offers workshops focused on promoting the scientific vocation of Mexican children and adolescents.
Bernardo (Bernie) Bastien (he/him/el)
Bernie earned a Masters in Climate Change from University College in London and PhD in Geography with focus in Climate Change Economics and Ecosystems. Co-founded Planeteando with Raiza in 2017. Postdoctoral Fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Evelyn Michael (she/her)
Evelyn is a trained Human Geographer and Ecologist working as a Geospatial Analyst and GIS Coordinator at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Maxar Technologies in Washington D.C. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and a Master of Science in Environmental Biology. She loves to travel, rock climb, read, and volunteer her time as a Community Science Fellow.
Planeteando
Planeteando was established in 2017 and serves as a platform to broadcast environmental and conservation initiatives via videos, blog posts, podcasts, and more.
National Geographic
National Geographic provided funding to Planetando in order to initiate TierraCamp during 2022.
Nanciyaga Ecological Reserve
TierraCamp was hosted in the Nanciyaga Ecological Reserve in Los Tuxtlas Veracruz.
Bosque Antiguo A.C.
Bosque Antiguo A.C. provided invaluable guidance during TierraCamp in August 2022 by engaging the community of Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz and the surrounding landscape. Additionally, they provided support to the project “Reintroduction of the scarlet macaw (Ara macao cyanoptera)” directed by Dr. Patricia Escalante from the UNAM Institute of Biology
