Making Conservation Inclusive through Creativity

Faced with growing environmental challenges, our ability to conserve the Earth’s biodiversity depends increasingly on collaboration across cultures, disciplines, places, and taxa.

The Creative Conservation Lab at Cornell combines participatory research with art and storytelling to make conservation more inclusive, and empower more people to shape the future of life on our planet.

At CCL, we envision a global network of creative conservationists empowered to develop and share their own environmental stories for impact using Cornell University’s world-class resources in research, education, and outreach. Our partners include grassroots non-governmental organizations, Indigenous communities, transdisciplinary researchers, artists, students, policymakers, corporations, and storytellers. We believe conservation cannot succeed without people. As a part of nature, it is our collective responsibility to give biodiversity a voice and foster coexistence with our environment and fellow living beings to the benefit of all who call this world home.

The CCL is proud to be a signature initiative in support of BioICU. We are actively seeking investors and collaborators to support flagship projects.

Our first project is focused on the Global Songbird Trade Crisis and its role in the decline of bird biodiversity

We welcome interested collaborators of any background or study to please get in touch with CCLs founding director Ben Mirin. We are especially interested in connecting with individuals and organizations who share the following interests and expertise:

• Researchers with experience in conservation social science, ethnography, media and performing arts, community-based participatory action research, environmental education, and environmental justice;
• Multimedia storytellers, producers, and editors focused on conservation, inclusion, and impact for People and Nature;
• Conservation programs, research groups, and community organizations with stories they wish to co-create and share with local and global media platforms;
• Media development professionals interested in community-led conservation storytelling

We look forward to sharing more opportunities with our community very soon, thank you for your interest in our work.