How Disney and National Geographic Are Helping Us ‘Step Into Wonder’ and Make a Difference for Our Planet This Earth Day and Beyond

Today, April 22, is Earth Day. It’s an important day to take a moment to honor and appreciate the wonder and magic of this planet we all call home. To celebrate, we had the chance to speak to leaders at the Disney Conservation Fund and National Geographic about their ‘Step Into Wonder’ initiative that is giving people all around the world a chance to give back and make a difference today and every day.

Disney’s ‘Step Into Wonder’ campaign is inspired by Disney and National Geographic’s “enduring mission to spark curiosity about the natural world,” and it is doing so with documentaries like Orangutan and Secrets of the Bees, curated lists of real-world activities and entertainment designed to inspire us, 30 days of stories of real-life people making a difference, and a goal to have us lean forward instead of back and make actual change, even at the smallest scale.

“Walt Disney had a great quote that we may overuse a little bit, but we love it so much – ‘Conservation isn’t just the business of a few people, it’s a matter that concerns all of us,'” Claire Martin, Senior Manager of Biodiversity Conservation at The Walt Disney Company and head of the Disney Conservation Fund, told us. “We do a ton of work protecting wildlife and nature now, but if we don’t have more people who care about it, this work will end with us. We very much believe in the power of the next generation to carry this torch forward.”

The Disney Conservation Fund is celebrating 30 years in 2026, and in that time, it has directed more than $141 million toward conservation initiatives that have helped protect over 300 million acres of habitat, supported over 1,000 species, provided over 18 million nature experiences for kids, and have “positively impacted” over 20 million people worldwide.

Martin told me that a few of the initiatives she’s most proud of over the 21 years she’s been with Disney Conservation Fund were when they worked with various organizations to help bring species that were near extinction back to greater numbers.

“We were just trying to reverse the decline of species, but in some cases, we saw species populations double in 10 years,” Martin said. “For example, we worked with the International Crane Foundation in China to recover the Siberian Crane. When we started, there were probably around 3,500 cranes, and today there are 7,000.

We also worked on butterfly initiatives at the University of Florida, and there was the Schaus’ Swallowtail butterfly that had only four individuals left they could find in the wild. Now, there’s close to 1,700.”

What’s also unique about Disney Conservation Fund is its ability to leverage the stories being told at The Walt Disney Company to make a real impact in the world. This actually extends all the way back to Walt’s True-Life Adventures documentaries and the work the team used to do to spotlight the wonders of nature in films like Bambi.

“We’ve been very lucky to work on a multi-year campaign tied to The Lion King and Mufasa to try and support efforts to double the amount of lions in the wild across Africa with partners like the Lion Recovery Fund at Wildlife Conservation Network,” Martin shared. “We’ve even created initiatives to protect the oceans with partners with Avatar and thinking about how we use this power, this moment that the world is focused on a story that shares themes of nature, animals, and the value that it has to us as people to connect people to the fact that we all have the power to make a difference.”

This also extends to some of National Geographic’s documentaries, like Ocean with David Attenborough.

“So few of us had awareness to the profound impact that deep-sea trawling was having on the environment, and Ocean with David Attenborough was the catalyst for legislative change,” Meagan Sanders, Senior Vice President Brand & Franchise for National Geographic told us. “Because of that, a number of those waters are now protected from trawling. So, quite often we work with filmmakers that are not only filmmakers, but also conservationists or environmentalists that want to do more than just make a documentary.”

However, watching and doing are two totally different things. While it’s great to have entertainment focused on our planet, how do we turn that into actual change, and how do we stop this next-generation of people from simply doomscrolling their lives away and help them become the next Jane Goodall or otherwise?

“It can be as simple as creating a pollinator garden in a flower pot in your backyard or thinking about the actions that you take in your daily life like recycling to even just getting out into nature to go on a hike, go to the beach, go fishing, whatever it might be. Those kinds of experiences build that connection,” Martin said. “We know that time in nature makes us happier and healthier. It supports greater creativity in kids. It supports wellbeing overall. It addresses things like depression.

“One of the other things that’s critically important is having a knowledgeable facilitator of that experience; a mentor, a park ranger, a teacher, an adult with a lot of passion, a camp counselor, or people that can enrich that experience and really share that true curiosity of learning, adventure, and exploration when it comes to getting outside. As we think about the things we invest in when it comes to connecting kids to nature, we’re very much looking at what are those enriching experiences that inspire awe and wonder and commitment going forward.”

While that can be easier said than done, Disney is offering ways to get engaged at its parks and beyond. For example, if you head to Disneyland’s Disney California Adventure, you can celebrate Secrets of the Bees by trying out menu items like the Hot Honey White Sangria or seeing the incredible creations at Disneyland’s Zero Waste Art Challenge that turned trash into art and was based on the themed of Bears, Bees, and a Bit of Magic.

Even if you can’t make it out to the park, you can head over to The Wonder List – a digital hub, Kids YouTube series, and collection of printable PDFs that are “filled with simple, surprising prompts that encourage families to explore the world around them. Oh, and if you’re near the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, you can even head over fo an activation with Nat Geo Yellow Border frames that teach you more about the world around you.

One of Sanders’s favorite parts of ‘Step Into Wonder’ is a 60-second short of Kermit, who talks about why he loves the swamp and the wonders of the natural world. Sure, it’s a funny and heartwarming video of an iconic character, but it could spark something inside of young Muppets fan.

What’s so special about this ‘Step Into Wonder’ campaign is how many ways it encourages that first step. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what will make someone get off their couch and change the world, but it’s worth giving it our all to make sure those chances are there and plentiful.

The perfect example of this is Nelson Alvarez, and his story can be anyone’s.

“There was a young man that was in the community for a project with Proyecto Tití we’ve been funding to protect cotton-top tamarins in Colombia,” Martin said. “And this young man, Nelson Alvarez, had been a part of each sort of step up of that programming and has now gone on to get a degree in environmental science and he just graduated.

“We named him a Disney Conservation Hero a few years ago because of his commitment to the species in this community and being a youth champion for it. To be able to see someone that had that spark created through one of our partners now be someone that’s stepping into a career in this space, it just shows the power that we can all have in inspiring that next generation.”

Speaking of the future, I ended my conversations with Martin and Sanders by asking them what they are most excited about for the future.

“What we’re excited about next is working with kids and families a little bit more,” Sanders said. “So, our mission is to discover how we take those great environmental messages and create awareness in kids around scientific topics, the culture of our world, and cultures families might never get to see firsthand? How can we create greater awareness, and how can we make a lot of those subjects and topics more accessible for kids and families as well?”

“I want Disney Conservation Fund to be bigger than Disney,” Martin added. “Of course, I want to continue the strong and meaningful legacy that our entire global employee and cast members can celebrate and feel like they’re a part of something bigger. But I think the dream and the sort of vision that we have is for a world where we live in harmony with nature and we look at how what we need as people is aligned with what nature needs, and that the future is one that is still full of magic.

“I always say there’s two places you can reliably come to find magic, Disney and nature. And so how do we protect that wonder, that awe, the magic that the natural world provides and do it in a way that supports the happiness and wellbeing of all of us for the long term?”

That is the ultimate question, and the amazing part is that we are the answer. Now, it’s time to step up.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst, Instagram, and TikTok, and listen to his show, Talking Disney Magic.