Challenge

A common challenge in my work as a Regional Technical Advisor for biodiversity and land degradation is  to persuade individuals to adopt more sustainable practices in terms of farming in order to reduce land  degradation, soil erosion, water pollution, deforestation and loss of biodiversity. As was emphasized in   the Coursera course, we need to “sell the challenge” so people can truly understand why the current  situation is negative and therefore why change is required. This is critical in order to elicit behavioral  changes, such as reduced use of pesticides, adoption of agroforestry systems, and more efficient  irrigation techniques, among others.

Selection

During the implementation of projects under my portfolio in Latin America and the Caribbean,  storytelling is often employed in order to convey messages that are relevant and meaningful to people.  It is not enough just to present people with the facts and data on the negative impacts of current  production practices on water quality, forests, biodiversity and climate change. It is important to create  emotional connections with producers. In order to do this effectively, we need to understand the target  audience(s) and what values and issues are important to them (for example, safe drinking water for  their families). The storytelling can then be more focused.

Application

In various projects under my portfolio, the storytelling tool is applied in different ways. One way is to  fund exchanges among producers from different regions so that they can learn from each other. This  often involves storytelling from the “converted” producers to describe how the adoption of more  sustainable practices has changed their lives for the better. Another way in which the storytelling tool is  applied is through the creation of videos with testimonials of project participants who inform the  viewers of the negative impacts associated with their former practices and the tangible benefits  experienced from the adoption of more sustainable production practices. This combines both  storytelling as well as the design tool of visualization, making it doubly effective. The messages/stories  conveyed during the farmer exchanges as well as the in the project videos focus on the part of the  message that is most powerful to the particular audience at hand. The stories also indicate what actions  people need to take to be more sustainable so it is as clear and simple as possible.

Insight

By applying this tool, I have learned that storytelling (and effective communications in general) is critical  for behavior change and environmental impact. My experience with this tool has underscored the  importance of finding the most effective messages for target audiences rather than simply imparting  information to promote environmental sustainability.  I also gained insight about how two different  design tools can effectively work together for greater impact, in this case, storytelling and visualization.

Approach

In the past, projects typically focused more on presenting the facts of an environmental challenge to  promote behavior change without making strong connections to people´s emotions, values and  priorities. Current projects are now more effective at using storytelling to elicit emotional connections

and are therefore more successful at increasing the adoption of sustainable practices. In the future, I  think it will be increasingly important to better understand the different sub-groups within target  audiences and their differing priorities in order to tailor the storytelling (and visualization in the case of  the production of videos) more effectively. This will likely require the use of another design tool that  was introduced in this course, namely, mind mapping, in order to gather key themes and insights based  on large amounts of information and data on producers´ perspectives, priorities and interests, and  thereby inform the design criteria.

