Green Map System 

over 350 worldwide

Private sector grants, donors,  mapmaker service fees, online store, workshop and other earned income

No expensive technology is needed. All Green Maps utilize a globally-designed iconography, which is provided to registered project leaders as a font or GIS script (or for youth/community projects, as stickers).\Their projects have been carried out with high tech graphic design tools, Geographical Information Systems and even just pencil and paper.

Inclusive citizen participation in Sustainable Development

The Green Map organization aims to help communities worldwide move towards Sustainable Development by using Green Mapmaking to illuminate the connections between natural and human environments. These locally-produced maps are designed to function as practical guides to greener living while helping disseminate model initiatives. Each unique Green Map provides insights into ecological, cultural and social resources and helps decisionmakers and community members chart their progress toward sustainability.

Activities include studying and mapping out any significant natural, cultural and ecological resources/features, including those that are under threat, in decline or should be preserved through field work, workshops and exhibits. The activities range from low-tech (hand-drawn) to high-tech maps (GIS and online interactive mapping).   Over 250 unique Green Maps have been published to date, approximately 70 can be accessed via their website.
Registered Mapmakers receive a kit of Green Maps,and  a resource disk (with Icon font).

Each local group registers their project, then spends many weeks or months researching their town's eco-cultural resources. They then design and publish their own regionally-flavored Green Map. There are also active regional and national centers in several areas. Known as Green Map Hubs, these centers provide materials, programs and other support in local languages (and time zones!), helping more people become involved in Green Mapmaking.

The result is a Green Map of the local community that is both an archive of present resources that serves as a useful green living guide for community members, and a blueprint for future sustainable development. Merging the ancient art of map making with new media tools, each of these maps creates a fresh perspective that helps residents discover and get involved  in their community's environment, and helps guide tourists (even virtual ones) to special places and successful green initiatives they can replicate back home.

Working towards an Open Green Map using Googlemap API, and developing the Greenhouse, an online structure for seeding, presenting, preserving and cultivating this worldwide eco-cultural mapping movement (open in Spring 07P

Students/Communities have found that making Green Maps helps with understanding of GIS and other digital resources and technologies (commercial and open source software, GPS, etc.). Green Map System offers an adaptable toolkit no matter your age, your social, educational and economic background, however, as it is a small NGO, it cannot provide these resources without a modest fee or service in exchange.

Green Map System is a locally adaptable, globally shared framework for environmental mapmaking. It invites teams of all ages and backgrounds to illuminate the connections between natural and human environments by mapping their local urban or rural community. Using Green Map's shared visual language--a collaboratively designed set of  copyrighted Icons representing the different kinds of green sites and cultural resources, Mapmakers are independently producing unique, regionally flavored images that fulfill local needs, yet are globally connected. The Green Map network is active worldwide, and includes grassroots and established NGOs, universities and schools, city agencies and tourism bureaus. Every Green Map is the result of a locally-driven process, but one that is influenced by other Mapmakers' experiences. Together, they form a powerful impression of how communities  around the world are making progress toward ecological and cultural sustainability.

www.greenmap.org, www.greenatlas.org