Together for Birds

We celebrate the diversity of birds and the diversity of all who cherish and conserve birds. We are inspired by our many partners and our dedicated staff. Effectively conserving wild birds throughout the Americas requires the creativity, dedication, and participation of far more people. However, interconnections between the needs of people and birds often remain invisible. Many people do not notice the birds around them, birds that can help with their own well-being. And, many people are unaware of potential career paths related to habitat conservation and birding. We believe that more explicitly illuminating connections between human well-being and bird conservation will help us support existing partners and bring together an ever-expanding community of people who care for birds.

Together for Birds involves three interconnected areas of work: Belonging and Balance, Ethical Conservation, and Birds for All. We seek to create a culture at ABC where our staff can thrive, to nurture the strong partnerships that are at the heart of successful and meaningful conservation, and to encourage curiosity and engagement with birds, habitat conservation, and conservationists.

What else should we invest in to ensure that we support each other and flourish together? To share your ideas and stories, or for more information, please contact Naamal De Silva, Vice President for Together for Birds, at info@abcbirds.org or via LinkedIn.

As we grow, we continue to consider new ways of investing in our staff, in their ideas, and in our evolving culture. Because our flock is increasingly scattered across many geographies, maintaining a cohesive culture and sense of belonging can be challenging. Several groups within the ABC community work on culture, belonging, professional growth, balance, and service. We learn collectively, create more opportunities for professional growth, address existing inequities, and work toward creating an ever-greater sense of belonging.

For over 30 years, ABC has worked for birds through a vast array of partnerships with people from communities, governments, Tribes, and nonprofit organizations throughout the Americas. We are proud that some of these relationships are nearly as old as our organization, enabling increasingly creative and expansive approaches to bird conservation over time. We continue to invest in these long-term partnerships while also seeking to collaborate with a range of new individuals and organizations who work for birds and conservation. We intend to carry out our conservation work in increasingly ethical ways, investing where the needs of birds and people intersect. Recognizing that whatever we work on requires substantive input from the people most impacted by our projects, we advocate for creating change collectively.

One example of this approach to ethical and long-lasting conservation is LARSI, the Latin American Reserve Stewardship Initiative. Since 2015, LARSI has supported the long-term sustainability of more than 70 reserves in 13 countries for the benefit of birds and people.

Our Together for Birds Awards are another means of expanding our ethical conservation work. We launched our first major awards in 2022, in the form of a paid, part-time fellowship program. In both 2022 and 2024, cohorts of Conservation and Justice Fellows examined specific ways in which we can expand our existing bird conservation work to more explicitly benefit people. Fellows examine the uneven distribution of the negative impacts of environmental change, create bird art, uphold the perspectives and rights of Indigenous people in managing their own lands for bird conservation, tell important conservation stories, provide children with greater access to nature and to environmental education, and advocate for policy change. In 2023, we created Together for Birds Seed Grants, smaller awards for independent research and creative projects. In 2024, we launched the Afrofuturism Collective with an inaugural cohort of nine individuals working on considering how stories, technologies, lifeways, and histories of the African diaspora can benefit bird and habitat conservation.

In 2026, we will offer both seed grants and fellowships. With a theme of Weaving Together, we want to strengthen and deepen the work of past fellows and seed grant recipients.

Our third area of work under Together for Birds involves education and access to nature and birding. Some of our seed grant recipients and fellows are educators and have worked with students in the Bahamas, coastal Texas, Peru, and Ecuador. Fellows and partners have been creating culturally relevant, multi-sensory, multi-lingual materials and approaches, inspiring future generations to enjoy and protect birds.