The Ecologist has for 50 years called for substantive social changes in order to end the destruction of our natural environment. This message is needed now more than ever. We're delighted that our readers understand the importance of our work, and agree with us that climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse and the way we produce food are the most important issues of our age.

But we also accept that very often we are preaching to the converted, and worse, failing to engage individuals and communities who would agree with what we have to say, if only they knew we were saying it.

We want to reach out to people from specific industries or with particular interests with specific articles. For example, we want health workers to read our articles about the environmental catastrophe that is novel coronavirus because they are the ones who have had to defend us from its deadly consequences. We know that BAME communities are often the worse effected by environmental breakdown, from air pollution in the UK to drought across Africa and sea level rises across South Asia.

We are asking our readers to contribute to a specific "burst the bubble" fund so that we can promote specific articles on social media to specific audiences. We are growing our audience - we had 3.4m visits to the website this year. But our reader survey suggests we have almost no black readers. We do need to fix this. And there is a solution. With your financial support we can ensure that our articles do reach those communities that have a right to be published by us, and to have access to the news and analysis that we publish. We currently have no social media budget. We know this is only one part of the solution and more work to represent and engage all communities is underway.

We would be extremely grateful if you could contribute the equivalent of one hour's pay so that we can promote articles on social media and ensure that our message of reconnecting with nature, of social justice, can "burst our bubble" and grow our community.

The money raised will create a social media fund to be spent promoting articles on social media as chosen by The Ecologist editorial team.

In solidarity,

Brendan Montague, Editor, The Ecologist