Climate Narrative Hub - Updates

nishkarshs · July 29, 2025, 6:24am

Introducing the Climate Narrative Hub

This isn’t just another climate initiative.
This is a narrative intervention.
A ground-shifting, mind-resetting, story-first rebellion against climate apathy.

India’s climate story has been technical, distant, drowned in jargon and restricted to siloes. With the climate narrative hub, we want to make it mainstream.

We work with partners across India, across themes to build and shape narratives.

Here’s a glimpse of the things we do -

Narrative Sensing: We track what stories are landing and what needs to be heard louder.
Media Engagement: We power up journalists and platforms to tell climate stories that actually matter.
Capability Building: We train community orgs and changemakers to become storytelling powerhouses.
Digital Firepower: We fuel campaigns, collabs with creators, and push climate into your everyday scroll.
Art & Culture: We bring in artists, poets, performers, and folk creators to move hearts, not just minds.

Know more about the rest of our offerings here.

What we’ve been upto this month:

The Climate Narrative Hub is tackling one of India’s most emotionally charged climate challenges - human-wildlife conflict.

Bengaluru Pilot: Coexisting with Elephants in Bannerghatta

In partnership with A Rocha India, we’re shifting how Bengaluru sees Bannerghatta — not just a zoo, but a 250+ sq. km. wild forest. Through Kannada content creators we’re reframing urban perspectives on coexistence. This video with renowned wildlife biologist Gowri Shankar has reached 150K views.

Central India Narrative Shift

Building on insights from partners in the region, we dug deeper into understanding what the dominant narratives around human wildlife interactions in Central India are via a virtual convening. We mapped what stories, perceptions and voices dominate the way the issue is understood by communities and conservationists, what needs to change and how to reach audiences that matter with new narratives. Here are some of our key insights -

WhatsApp is the first responder: It is the primary and most immediate communication platform in villages, and the site of spreading both fear and useful information
Timing is critical: Messaging campaigns must align with harvest seasons where conflict sees an uptick
Messaging has a big role to play in building trust: CSOs and Forest departments need messaging help to build trust and open lines of communication with communities. Amplifying stories of champions within the forest department is key

Additionally, we also engaged with partners working on the intersection of Climate and Gender to co-design a storytelling fellowship to highlight the voices of women leaders at the forefront of building climate resilience in their communities. Look out for more on this in the coming months!

The Climate Narrative Hub is anchored by our founding partners, Dasra and Momentum Shifts.

We would love to collaborate on your next narrative campaign!

iraa_swasti · September 9, 2025, 5:37am

What we’ve been upto in August

1. Human–Wildlife Interactions

As a pilot, we partnered with 5 Kannada creators (one more on the way!) to produce engaging Instagram reels highlighting the importance of the Bannerghatta National Park in Bengaluru—its biodiversity, its cultural significance, and the urgent need to protect it. The pilot has reached over 1.6 million views so far and continues. You can watch a few of these reels on our newly launched Bengaluru Instagram channel - Blr Talks. Follow us here on Instagram.

Building on this momentum, we’re exploring opportunities to expand similar storytelling initiatives with other conservation partners. If you’re an organization working in conservation in India, we’d love to speak with you!

2. Green Economy

Together with partners such as CEEW, we are developing fresh narratives around green entrepreneurship and innovation. By shaping this narrative, we aim to encourage greater participation, while also helping channel more capital into grassroots initiatives and India’s “next 100 cities,” beyond the usual hubs of Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.

3. Hamari Maati Ki Kahaani: A Hindi WhatsApp Channel

To deepen citizen engagement on ecological and sustainability issues, we’ve launched Hamari Maati Ki Kahaani, a Hindi WhatsApp channel for rural audiences. The channel shares highly shareable posts on:

Waste and plastics
Natural farming practices
Connections between Indian culture and festivals with nature’s rhythms
And more…

Follow our Whatsapp channel here - हमारी माटी की कहानी 💚 | WhatsApp Channel

Feel free to share the posts with the communities you’re working with!

4. Tackling Invasive Species

As an initial exploration on invasive species, we engaged with Sayantan Bera, National editor, Mint, to publish a feature on the impact of invasive bees on India’s local ecosystems. Read here -

TL;DR: India’s honey boom is built on the exotic Apis mellifera and not a native bee species, but this shift has endangered native bees (Apis cerana, Apis dorsata, stingless bees), reducing biodiversity and threatening pollination systems vital for small farmers and subsistence farmers.

iraa_swasti · October 15, 2025, 5:58am

**Our September updates are here!

1. Strengthening Rural and Climate Narratives in Madhya Pradesh

We recently signed a 3-year-long MOU with the Sustainable Development Initiative Association (or SDIA) in Madhya Pradesh to deepen the conversation around natural farming, agroecology, conservation, and the promotion of indigenous livelihoods. Together, we will work to create digital and ground-level narratives around local circular economies, the commons, migration, and amplify women’s leadership, ensuring that rural voices and climate solutions go hand in hand.

Know more about SDIA here.

2. Climate creators meetup

Last month, we convened our first-ever Climate Narrative Hub Creators’ Meet-up! We were joined by some of India’s most powerful voices in climate storytelling: Shivya Nath, Aalekh Kapoor, Nayana Premnath, Sanjivini Sharma and Shweta Kataria.

From what first drew them into climate content, to the challenges of reach and financial stability, our creators candidly addressed their motivations and narrative strategies. It was an extremely insightful 3 hours for the team. We plan to organize such creator meet-ups regularly. Do loop in or comment with your favourite climate creators.

3. Punjab floods media scan

We conducted a rapid scan of the media narratives (legacy national/ regional media and Instagram) on the recent Punjab floods. And the contrasts are striking. Who gets the spotlight? Where are the shadows? How are narratives shaping public perception? This is in no way comprehensive and just an early attempt, but it reveals how the media frames this crisis and what’s missing. Document capturing the insights here - MS - Punjab Floods 2025 Media Scan .pdf (305.8 KB)

4. Ongoing work on Human Wildlife Interaction Narratives

We collaborated with a popular rural Hindi creator in Madhya Pradesh named Hariya bhaiyya with a reach of 118K on Instagram, by creating multiple reels on the importance of coexistence of wildlife and farmers. The videos garnered 244K views across Instagram and Facebook and were shared by the forest department as well.

You can watch them here:

iraa_swasti · November 7, 2025, 11:49am

What has CNH been upto in October?

1. We have partnered with NCNF

We’re excited to share that we’ve signed an MoU with the National Coalition for Natural Farming (NCNF), a 500+ member alliance with 6 state coalitions. Together, we’ll amplify farmer stories, share evidence-based practices, and strengthen advocacy for natural farming.

This is a big step for the Climate Narrative Hub toward making natural farming a mainstream narrative and building a resilient agricultural future.

Know more about NCNF.

2. We hosted our first CNH Meetup in Bengaluru

On Tuesday, October 28, CNH held its first meetup in Bengaluru, bringing together participants from civil society organizations, media, and design and consulting studios. More than 35 people joined the 3-hour session, where we shared the evolving concept of the hub and its offerings. The discussion also explored the themes participants want to see reflected in mainstream narratives and the challenges in shaping those stories.

We are coming to Delhi and Mumbai in November and December! Stay tuned.

3. Climate Narrative Hub storytelling workshops are on the way!

Starting November 4, we are launching a series of online workshops on climate storytelling and communications for an Indian audience. The first workshop of a 2-part series is slated for November 4 with Divya Narayanan on campaign strategy & advocacy. By the end of the session, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and frameworks to plan and run effective campaigns that influence change. The workshop will be conducted in a two part series of 90 minutes each.

For more details, refer here.

4. CNH has a Brain Trust

The Climate Narrative Hub has constituted a Brain Trust to support its thinking and progress. The Brain Trust is constituted of leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries to soundboard the progress of the Hub. The members are:

Ishita Srivastava (Frameworks Institute)
Mihir Shah (CEEW)
Kevin Lee (Yuvaa), and
Nidhi Jamwal (Independent Journalist).

We are grateful to each one of them for their commitment and offering their support to the Hub.

iraa_swasti · March 29, 2026, 6:06pm

Climate Narrative Hub: What we’ve been up in 2026

Hello everyone! It has taken us a while to land in your inboxes because 2026 has been quite the start for the Climate Narrative Hub! Sharing a few updates on what we’ve been up to.

Getting the word out about the Hub: Towards the end of 2025, we hosted two CNH roadshows in Delhi and Mumbai, bringing together collaborators to explore opportunities to shape public narratives beyond organisational visibility. If any partner would like to work with us on narratives, we’d love to connect. Please tell us more by filling this form: Climate Narrative Hub: Partner Request Form

Narrative Ecosystem:

We also co-hosted a creator-led showcase at Sustaina India 3.0 with CEEW in New Delhi in January, bringing together four incredible creators reimagining what climate storytelling can look like if told via music, visual arts and social media. We brought together four creators: Multimedia artist Niroj Satpathy, musician Jishnu Dasgupta from Swarathma, wildlife biologist and creator Gowri Shankar, and artist and agripreneur Anuja Dasgupta.

At Dasra Philanthropy Week 2026, we hosted a session on messaging and understanding audiences with speakers from Ek Kutumb, Yuvaa, Civic Studios and an independent artist KrantiNaari. Speakers highlighted the need for urgency and action focused messaging to go beyond just awareness, the need to move beyond rigid project structures to act on the fly to respond to major climate events (eg. floods/ heatwaves etc), and the need to engage children and youth to drive climate messaging further.

Screenshot 2026-03-25 at 8.34.03 AM856×1146 56.6 KB

Capacity-Building Sessions:

The CNH organised a three-part data storytelling workshop with Gurman Bhatia, an award-winning data storyteller. The workshop saw the participation of over 60 journalists, communicators and storytellers from across India. We covered everything from making climate data feel relatable, to story structures and using AI tools for stronger storytelling.

Status Update on Thematic Work

1) Urban Mobility: Three-Day Exhibition @ AmdavadNXT

We collaborated with SHIFT Transport Initiative to organise AmdavadNXT – a 3-day exhibition-cum-event led by WRI India, Asar, ITDP, and other partners. We partnered with local Gujarati influencers to to amplify conversations around public transport in Ahmedabad. The event saw the participation of more than 3,000 people, including students, bureaucrats and local organisations.

2) Green Economy: As part of our work on green entrepreneurship and innovation:

We hosted a closed-door CSR roundtable during Dasra Philanthropy Week where partners like CEEW, SwitchOn and Pradan spoke about opportunities in green economy, rural enterprise and place-based ownership and where CSR can play a catalytic role in shifting the narrative around domestic giving to focus on these levers.
We were present at the Sankalp Bharat summit in Lucknow, where we organised a live pitch challenge for green entrepreneurs and hosted a bilingual Green Economy Quiz. For this, we partnered with CEEW, Villgro, Jagriti Enterprise Centre and University of Toronto India Foundation. Below is a photo from the event where students are engaging with our Green Economy stall at the event.

And, we are continuing our collaboration with regional storytellers to create reels in different languages across Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka. Over the last two months, we’ve worked with over creators to share over 18 reels covering everything from green entrepreneurship to circular economy.

3) Natural Farming:

We’ve been amplifying farmer stories, sharing evidence-based practices, promoting community seed banking, and rooftop/urban gardening across states and regionals. We’ve helped create over 17 reels and our partners include National Coalition of Natural Farming, Sambhav, WASSAN, Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD), Pathe Pathshala, Kitchen Gardening Association Bhubaneswar, and NIRMAN.

4) Safe Foods:

Over the last two months, we have also collaborated with creators across languages like Kannada and Hindi to spark awareness towards safe, natural and chemical-free food choices. So far, we’ve posted 14 reels and 2 of them have already crossed 500K+ views! Reel 1 and Reel 2.

We also conducted an exploratory survey in MP on attitudes towards safe food. Reach out to us for the findings! Additionally, we are building out a working group with market-focused actors and testing our messages.

5) Human Wildlife Interactions:

In December, we hosted a solutions-focused workshop for journalists with The Migration Story. The workshop focused on developing grounded, ethical, and solutions-oriented reporting on human–wildlife interactions in Central India. The cohort of 10 included freelance, full-time, and emerging journalists from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh and the workshop enabled deep engagement, mentoring, and hands-on reporting. Participants developed story pitches based on field reporting, with ongoing support to refine these into publishable, solutions-focused stories. We have published our first story and others our in process. Link to the published story : https://frontline.thehindu.com/environment/pench-women-safari-guides-wildlife-conservation/article70734198.ece
The Hub is actively developing Stories of Coexistence - a storytelling initiative focused on surfacing real, place-based examples of human–wildlife coexistence, particularly in Central India. On-ground partnerships include:

The Corbett Foundation — supporting stories from the Kanha and Kuno landscapes (Madhya Pradesh)
Chambal Media — documenting stories from Panna district
Ongoing collaborations with organizations such as Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and others

The next phase will focus on amplification and distribution, with partners including:

The Better India
Brut India
PLUC TV (strategic distribution partner)

Alongside media platforms, the Hub is also engaging creators, artists, and cultural voices to translate these stories into diverse formats enabling wider public resonance. This includes exploring formats such as music, digital storytelling, and creator-led interpretations to expand reach.

In January, we supported and participated in the 4th National Conference on Lesser Known Species of Central India Landscape In Bhopal. Hosted by the Society of Nature Healers Conservators (SNHC India) and the MP State Biodiversity Board, the two-day conference included conversations on species that get ignored in conservation efforts and their critical role in ecosystem health.

7) Gender:

We are thrilled that the ClimateRise Alliance in partnership with CNH and Youth ki Awaaz is launching a Storytelling Fellowship for grassroots women leaders to help them document and amplify climate stories rooted in their own lived experience. More details soon!

If any of this sounds like something your organisation would be interested in, do reach out to us! Do follow our Instagram channels:

Madhya Pradesh - Instagram
Odisha - Instagram
Bangalore - Instagram