A note from our Executive Director, Shantha Ready Alonso

Dear America the Beautiful for All Coalition community,

Several Coalition members and partners have been asking what we are doing now that the United States is no longer participating in the global conservation goal of protecting 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030, and that environmental justice priorities are no longer being implemented at the federal level.

The answer is -- we continue to carry the banner for these goals and the values that underpin them in our communities everywhere. The essence of our work at America the Beautiful for All remains the same: to save nature while protecting our public health and upholding environmental justice.

In 2025 we continued to share our stories, build capacity, and collectively advocate. Some highlights of last year include:

Story-Telling
- We launched our Coalition's Story Directory, an open-source hub for all kinds of people to share their stories at the intersection of nature, justice, and public health.
Capacity-Building
- We shared community-driven strategies to protect communities from extreme heat, leveraging urban parks and greenspaces. The recorded webinar series is available on our YouTube and our learners were featured in a presentation at the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators.
- We equipped our members with winning messaging strategies based on objective polling of the public about issues of race, class, nature, environmental justice and public health. Research affirms that our causes are broadly popular. In spite of the current political climate, it is a winning strategy to continue what we've been doing -- to talk about saving nature, environmental justice, and health in a way that centers stories of authentic messengers who live closest to nature.
Collective Advocacy
- We organized thousands of people associated with the U.S. territories to sign a petition to push back against deep sea mining off the coast of American Samoa, finding new grassroots connections in our partnership with Coalition member Right to Democracy.
- We educated and mobilized to successfully stop the public lands sell-off in Congress' big budget bill.
- We are defending the Endangered Species Act and conservation science funding.
- We continue calls-to-action to uphold the Roadless Rule and the Public Lands Rule -- policies with outsized importance for defending and restoring wild places, safe water, and wildlife!
- We released Farm Bill policy principles of BIPOC organizations at the Doris Duke Treehouse during Climate Week NYC 2025.

With your support, we can expand our impact this year, in 2026, the year of our country's 250th birthday. Every contribution helps us defend the accessible, sustainable natural and cultural heritage of America the Beautiful -- FOR ALL!

Donate today. Join us.

With gratitude,

Shantha Ready Alonso

Executive Director, America the Beautiful for All Coalition

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