Celebrating Valentine’s Day with nature love stories

This post was first published by Brooklyn Story Lab. It is posted here with the permission of the authors.

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For Valentine’s Day, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) dispatched with flowers and chocolates and traded them in for stories. The IUCN’s #NatureForAll movement produced a two-week celebration of love stories… about nature! Participants were invited to share stories about their planet-saving work.

Brooklyn Story Lab shared 7 stories from the wide ecosystem of our partners, ranging from the all-woman anti-poaching ranger unit in Zimbabwe (with partner One Earth) to the Mars technology that is helping farmers in Brazil practice better regenerative agriculture (with partner Chemonics). Visit the #NatureForAll Love Fest page to know more about this celebration and check out all the stories in the series below.

And next time you want to express affection for your partner, try telling a story. (Also: let us know how that works out.)

Story 1 – No Sense

What if the atmosphere becomes so toxic that you and your true love can only have intermittent moments of togetherness without … protection? We won’t say anymore, but suggest as a valentines reminder of what truly matters, you watch this 60-second film, “No Sense,” from our partners at Mobile Film Festival. It’s a dystopian vision of our environment — but we need to work hard to ensure it doesn’t happen:

Story 2 – Climate Hero: Nyaradzo Hoto

Want the definition of “hero”? Nyaradzo Hoto leads an all-women anti-poaching ranger unit in Zimbabwe. They work in a dangerous environment where they’re protecting wild animals and taking on armed poachers. And almost all of the women in the Akashinga (the “Brave Ones” in Zimbabwe’s Shona language) are victims of domestic abuse.

Read more about the work of Akashinga on the website of our partners, One Earth:

Story 3 – Cop of plenty

There were many reasons why COP27 was a disappointment for climate activists. But for our partner Blue Planet Alliance, which is helping island countries transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045, the UN’s climate conference in Egypt was a small triumph, as we signed climate agreements with two UN Member States, Tonga and Tuvalu. Read more about the movement here:

Story 4 – A lesson in the power of community

Growing up a shepherd boy in the tranquil mountains of Turkey, Hamdi Ulukaya had little to fear. Except wolves. When he moved to the U.S. and launched yogurt brand Chobani (Turkish for “shepherd”) in 2007, Ulukaya embedded community within the company’s purpose. Now it’s incredibly successful, but also has a throughline of giving back in every aspect of its mission. It’s a corporate to admire in this UN Sustainable Development Goals “Decade of Action.” Read more about his journey on the website of our partners The B Team:

Story 5 – Saving Elephants… to Save Ourselves

Remember that heartwarming family of more than a dozen elephants in China that journeyed 500 kilometers (300 miles) over 18 months, in a loop back to where it began? That “feel-good” story was actually more of an indictment on the negative impacts of climate change. Read more about the elephants and why we need to protect them — which will also help save ourselves — on the website of our partners World Elephant Day:

Story 6 – UNLEASH India 2022

What happens when 1,000 next-gen talents from more than 100 countries come together each year — in a different host country each time — to try and solve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals? Pure magic, as evidenced in this video by our partners UNLEASH, which in 2022 convened in India:

Story 7 – From Outer Space to Brazilian Farmland

Soil-testing technology developed for the red planet is helping farmers on Earth be more green. Our partner Chemonics is using NASA tech from Mars to teach Brazilian soybean growers how to more efficiently sample soil carbon composition: