John Talbot, Flickr

The Great Communities for People and Nature campaign (March 2004) was a research and public outreach project designed to get the word out about innovative community-based solutions to the biodiversity crisis in the United States.

The Biodiversity Project's goals for the Great Communities campaign were to:

• Raise public awareness about the connections between habitat protection and community quality of life;
• Encourage individuals to support community-based actions, policies and initiatives that will institutionalize biodiversity protection at the local level;
• Promote innovative and responsible approaches to local biodiversity protection.

Through this program the Biodiversity Project sought examples of communities that had adopted unique and effective activities that resulted in positive outcomes for biodiversity. We then compiled and pitched those stories to media outlets and created a "message kit" for environmental and conservation organizations.

The Great Communities message kit was created to help organizations build awareness of biodiversity issues in their community through the use of success stories. It was also designed to make it easier for organizations to help the media "get" the concept of biodiversity and understand why it is an important issue in their community. The Great Communities message kit includes:

• A series of fact sheets to help educate reporters and the public on three key indicators for assessing the conditions for biodiversity in their community;
• A set of communications tools designed to help organizations break biodiversity out of the environmental or science section of the newspaper;
• Examples and stories of Great Communities for People and Nature;
• A resource guide.