Food Security
Regardless of where you live, food security is likely to be an issue for someone in your community. In March, Green Mapmakers had their first discussion dedicated to mapping local farms and food resources, learning from the great work undertaken in Washington state's Jefferson county by Ms. Hunt and the Food Bank Growers. With a great new set of Food Icons (add your comments at GreenMap.org/localfood) being finalized soon, and lots of examples of both print and interactive food oriented Green Maps, you can see the group at work in this recording.
Your support helps us address critical issues like food security, and this week, your donations up to $50 are matched at the 50% level. Please donate by midnight on Friday!
Mexican Workshop
In March, our director was heading to Mexico. After exciting days and meetings in Mexico City, Wendy connected with a historic anthropology museum in San Cristobal de las Casas (which is in the state of Chiapas) to hold a Green Map workshop. Museo Na Bolom had just opened a terrific exhibition entitled ‘The Map Is Not The Territory’, covering the early years of exploration by outsiders of the Lacandon Jungle and its riches of Mayan Ruins.
Mr. May, curator, led the Mapa Verde Taller and an enthusiastic group joined in, including local people plus visitors from Spain, Canada and the US. Using our icons, the community's collectives, areas that flood, and historic sites were quickly charted. We’re glad to share that the sketch map made there was added to the exhibition! We'll place the short video we played there in Spanish and English below, and check this blog for photos and some of our Spanish language mapping resources. Wendy so appreciated the culture and nature she experienced there - we hope to see more mapmaking in Mexico.
Trainings in Scotland
The main city on the Cowal peninsula, Dunoon, was the scene of a series of Green Map trainings, led by the Pop Shop. Many local experts took part as the group explored and mapped out biodiversity sites, green spaces, active travel networks and heritage spots. Whether looking for bryophytes and lichens at the heritage trail by Sandbank or learning to recognize indicators of a rainforest as opposed to a native woodland, as seen on LinkedIn, this was a rich experience for all.
Upcoming Events in Manhattan!
Earth Day Tour! This is a great time to check out Green Infrastructure in the East Village with Green Map. We’ll start at La Plaza Cultural (at Ave C & 9th Street) at 1pm on Saturday April 22. We’ll end at Tompkins Sq Park where hawk watching will be underway. Join us and LUNGS and celebrate our neighborhood’s Spring Awakening - all are welcome to join activities in the vicinity all afternoon.
Open Office (on zoom) April 25 10 AM NYC time - have questions about making a Green Map? Please drop in and we can help you get started or do more with your local project.
Join our annual Jane’s Walk on Friday May 5, starting at 3pm at Siempre Verde Garden (181 Stanton St at Attorney). All are welcome on this climate health and public space tour on the Lower East Side. This one mile easy, free walk is also part of LES History Month. It concludes at Dimes Square.
Our thanks to everyone who contributes to the ongoing work and joy of Green Mapmaking! Your support is doubly appreciated today, as the Little by Little 50% match week continues!
Best wishes to all this Earth Month!
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Our thanks to you for being on the Green Map support team in 2022!
Locally, all around the world, you helped to illuminate and connect so many positive actions that we are proud to highlight in our blog and social media. Small positive actions - including mapmaking - snowball into bigger outcomes, and ours keep impacting more neighbors, places and projects each year. The world needs more of this, and your generous involvement is key!
We outlined big plans for 2023 in our most recent GlobalGiving report and are making steady progress on our climate, sustainability and wellbeing mission. We are looking ahead to a year of refreshing exchange and engagement with our global network and our own local NYC Green Map project too.
Our work in 2023 will definitely benefit from your generosity as we work to maximize progress towards a thriving world. Thank you again for standing with us and the Green Mapmakers who adapt our tools and lead the way locally each day.
Our best wishes to you for a healthy, sustainable and joyful season and all the best for 2023!
It’s Giving Tuesday, an ideal time to support Green Map because GlobalGiving is boosting all donations made by Midnight ET. Give $10 - $2,500 or set up a recurring gift; it’s more important than ever because so many new communities are getting involved in local sustainability efforts, thanks to our easy to use mapmaking platform and the hopeful images it conveys.
Good news! Now we are working with developers of the Green Map Platform to assist the many map projects without an online presence. To help ‘level the playing field,’ each will be able to create a mini-website around their map in order to share their story - how they made the map, who was involved, how it fits into their group’s mission and how it impacted their community and its environment.
Help us create resources accessible by all!
Take a look at new.opengreenmap.org and see the breadth of activity on the platform. We’re supporting equitable access by enhancing our ‘crowdsourcing’ survey tool, too, as well as improving our adaptable outreach and marketing materials to help these diverse groups campaign and involve more of their community, both in person and online. Fulfilling this need was part of our takeaway from COP26, and we know that real world impact is being felt by communities in all corners of the globe.
During this time, we are especially welcoming Green Map projects that create unique formats, like this season’s experiential mapping with Azabu University in Japan and detail-rich newsletters such as that from Cuba’s Mapa Verde network. And of course, Green Maps are still being printed in settings from Baltimore to Cape Town.
Your generous gift to us is really a gift to the world’s communities, since so many will benefit! As we re-launch the Green Map Platform with your support, you’ll know you helped us ramp up to meet new demand. You will find a glimpse below of good work already in progress, thanks to the GISCollective.
From all of us in the Green Map network, we are grateful to you today and every day for both your earth-care and your ongoing support. Thank you for standing with us as we build skills, knowledge and networks for a better future for all.
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Golden days of autumn! Crisp and cool days energize the team at Green Map and our colleagues around the world.
This has been a great year for projgress on the Green Map Platform! We have a constant stream of updates thanks to our developer team at the GISCollective (you can also view the more technical open source updates). Behind the scenes, we’re expanding the Platform to make it easier for everyone to make and share Green Maps. Your support makes all the difference!
We hosted events online and in person this season, including the Platform’s lunchtime learning session we created for the Climate Fringe of Scotland. The presentation is now featured in our blog. Let us know if you’d like to create a session like this and involve your part of the world in building capacity, knowledge and networks for community and climate health.
Green Map is included in the Tools for a Warming Planet created by our long-time colleague, Ms. Ferguson and her team - peruse the catalog at warmingplanet.org This traveling exhibition has been shown this year at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven NL, Ars Electronica in Linz AS, and in the International Symposium on Electronic Arts of Barcelona ES and in the US, Arts Santa Monica!
We’re always delighted to hear from Green Mapmakers and share their news.
Society of Wilderness is getting a new project rolling - literally, kicking it off with a 15 day tour by bike around Taiwan! Promoting two new Green Map games is their goal, one based around domestic travel and the other to get acquainted with indigenous and invasive exotic flora and fauna in Yongchunpi Wetland Park. Follow SOW on Facebook to see how they elevate biodiversity across their beautiful island.
Cape Town Green Map celebrated their 13th anniversary and have now published 10 unique Green Maps, as this blog describes. Visit their website for news on local progress in South Africa, too.
Our best wishes to all our GlobalGiving supporters this season!
Summer is a great season for making Green Maps!
People often have extra time to explore, assess and map points of interest, based on a theme like preservation, outdoor activities, food security or green living. Lately, it has been so exciting to see all the new users sign in on our Platform, where a new Green Map can very efficiently and inclusively created, thanks to helpful resources like our data crowdsourcing Campaign tool. Here’s an example:
Have you heard of the Chance Lighthouses?
Over the course of the last 6 weeks, a global community of lighthouse enthusiasts and Green Mapmakers have come together to collate information about Chance Brother lighthouses on our new Platform. The project is led by the UK nonprofit, Digventures. It has been developed in collaboration with our Green Map team, Hannah of Tacit Tacit in Scotland and the GISCollective in Berlin.
Working with DigVenture’s Community Archaeologist Ms. Jago, the Green Map team has trained volunteers on using the Green Map platform, walking them through the leadership and management tools, even supporting them as they designed new icons for the Made In Smethwick: Lighthouses Around the World Green Map. There's a Campaign for quick data collection and the map-in-progress has over 260 entries - see it here!
Mapping these lighthouses gives facinating insight into the development of global trade routes, colonialism and the condition of our coastlines
The group of volunteers meets online to exchange perspectives and lighthouse stories, like the one shown below. Our director has also delivered a talk to volunteers about Green Map movement and how the tools support communities to understand sustainable living locally. Wendy notes:
"The Platform allows you to see the locations of Chance Lighthouses even before the description has been published. This is a great fit with this project’s phase 2 which encourages people to visit the lighthouses, and add photos, soundscapes, and condition or environmental-risk surveys. We love that participants are also mapped! "
Look closer at this heritage-based global Green Map project and its flexible program design. There's a culminating event and reunion on August 18th - watch our social media for an invitation. Our thanks to DigVentures and everyone involved in this fascinating global effort!
Every Green Map shares a unique perspective, whether in Scotland or South Africa (check out the Cape Town 13th Anniversary blog, for example) - your support makes it happen!
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