Founder and CEO of Mongabay, a nonprofit organization that delivers news and inspiration from Nature’s frontline via a global network of reporters.
Why big problems need small wins For decades, Enrique Ortiz has worked to protect some of the world’s most vital ecosystems. In a recent Mongabay commentary, he voiced a truth that many in conservation rarely say aloud: Environmental messaging is failing to inspire enough people to act. The facts are known, yet they rarely change minds. To break through, Ortiz argues, we must tell stories of tangible change—rooted in real places, people, and results—so hope becomes not just a feeling, but a reason to act. The science is not flawed, nor the dangers overstated. The problem is relying too heavily on facts to change minds in a world where facts alone rarely do. Research shows people decide through a mix of emotion, experience, and social cues—not purely data. This mismatch explains why so many accurate messages fall flat. Climate change, framed mostly in planetary terms, can feel so vast & distant that individuals see no way to influence it. Ortiz calls for a narrative “revolution”—stories of adaptation & resilience, grounded in lived experience, over abstract warnings. When he taught students about plant-animal interactions, they forgot the scientific details but remembered the stories. This is “narrative transportation”—a neurological process that helps ideas stick & decisions shift. The bigger the problem, the smaller an individual feels. “Solve climate change” can seem visible but unreachable. People retreat from news they find exhausting, while opponents of climate action exploit this futility to erode momentum. The antidote is not to downplay the crisis, but to scale part of the narrative so people can see the difference they make. Optimism is not naïve—it is an engine for agency. Local action makes results tangible. In the Philippines, communities replanting mangroves can measure shifts in tides & storm protection. In the Comoros, a no-take fishing zone means fuller nets just outside its boundaries. These are not diversions from the bigger fight; they are proof that people respond to challenges they can touch, shape, and witness. Local victories ripple outward, offering blueprints others can adapt. They turn abstractions like “protecting biodiversity” into bringing salmon back to a river or keeping sea turtles nesting on a beach. A steady diet of doom breeds political stagnation. People who believe nothing can be done rarely act. Those who have seen a wetland restored tend to keep showing up. Ortiz’s call is to reframe the vantage point. The global crisis is real, but change grows from local soil. By linking a patch of prairie to global biodiversity or a rooftop solar panel to energy transformation, we make a global problem feel solvable. Global change won’t happen in one leap, but through thousands of small, visible wins that build momentum for systemic shifts. Local victories & systems change are inseparable; each creates space for the other. The outcome is unwritten—but at the human scale, it is possible.