The problem is real.
Backyard.bio exists because 3 billion birds have disappeared from North America since 1970. Because the insect populations that support those birds have collapsed. Because the ecological systems that keep this planet livable are unraveling — slowly enough that most of us don't notice, fast enough that it matters enormously.
Not through fear.
We also exist because we believe the way to change that is not through fear. Fear has been the dominant register of environmental communication for forty years. It doesn't work. People shut down. They feel guilty, then tired of feeling guilty, then they stop reading altogether.
What works is curiosity. What works is the almost embarrassingly modest practice of noticing what's living on the patch of ground you happen to have access to — and learning what it needs. Multiplied by tens of millions of patches, that practice is the largest conservation tool we have. It is also the most enjoyable.
The people who do this work tend to love their lives.
A platform for the people who do this.
We are building a platform for those people — and for the people who aren't yet those people but could be. A tool that measures your impact. Content that builds your curiosity. A community that shows you the difference you're making. And eventually a marketplace that makes it easy to get everything your yard needs from people who actually know what works.
Small, local, real.
The work is small. The work is local. The work, multiplied across enough patches, is real.
Welcome. Glad you're here.
Reach us
We answer letters.
If something we wrote landed wrong, or you have a question, or you saw something on your patch this morning that you want to tell someone about — write to us. We're a small team, but we read every letter, and we reply to most of them.
hello@backyard.bio