Earth Day is April 22, which makes next month Earth Month.

I’d like to invite you to participate in a Twitter hashtag campaign for the entire month.  The purpose of this campaign is to bring some attention and praise to the people who are doing great conservation work.  I’m calling the campaign #30EarthMonthHeroes.

Participation is easy.  Starting on April 1, post a tweet about someone who you think is doing great work to protect the Earth or the Ocean, either someone you know or someone you would like to know. Say something nice, upload a photo, link to a story or a video, tag them, and use the hashtag #30EarthMonthHeroes. 

Each subsequent day, thread one additional tweet about someone you admire.  It’s important to thread your tweets, so that by the time you get to April 30, you will have one single long thread.  If you thread them properly, throughout the month, as readers find your tweets they will be able to easily scroll up and down to find the people that you’ve been tweeting about.  If this works the way I hope it will, even the people who find your tweets as late as April 30, will still be scrolling back to your tweets from April 1. 

If all goes according to plan, we reach new audiences on a large scale and greatly impact the conversation about conservation, while building a twitter following for ourselves, as well as the people who we call out as Earth Month Heroes. Plus it’s nice to hear from your colleagues when you are doing a good job.

It’s really that simple. 

This is meant to be voluntary and fun, and it’s a chance to say thanks to the people in our line of work who dedicate their lives to making the world a better place – so no pressure!

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section and I will try to answer them.

How do I thread my tweets?

Ask Twitter.

Does my Ocean Month Hero need to be on Twitter?

If you are picking 30 people that inspire you, chances are one or more are not going to be on Twitter.  Don’t let that stop you from recognizing them!  If you can’t tag them, you could try adding a link to their website or to something they wrote.

Does my Ocean Month Hero need to be alive today?

Again, you should recognize whoever you want.  I’ll be shocked if Rob Stewart and Ruth Gates don’t get a few mentions (I’m going to mention Rob, whose final film Sharkwater: Extinction comes out on Amazon Prime on April 22), and won’t be surprised if the likes of Henry David Thoreau or Rachel Carson pop up.

What if I need to miss a day?  Or a week?

That’s fine.  The idea is to post one Ocean Month Hero per day, but if you can’t post over the weekend, post three on Monday.  And if you only get to 14 over the course of the month, those 14 people will still be happy to be recognized by you.