Mark Mulligan, Reader in Physical Geography ay King’s College London and prolific KML content creator, is at it again. On the occasion of Earth Day, King’s is launching HealthyPlanet.org, which lets “individuals and companies sponsor areas of protected parks throughout the world, choosing from more than 70,000 different parks or heritage sites in danger.”
The site won’t be fully functional until the end of week, but Earth Day won’t wait:-). By the end of the week, however, you’ll be able to use Google Earth/Maps to find and “claim” plots of protected parklands around the world by donating to Healthy Planet, a new charity set up in association with the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Proceeds go to conservation projects.
Until then, you can read the press release; if you visit the site today you will find it in preview mode — no adopting of park lands yet.
Feh. I was hoping there might be more participatory aspects to this like boundary mapping or commenting on conditions/threats/volunteering opportunities in an adopted area. This seems a lot like the adopt-a-star or name-a-star vanity schemes. I guess the $ is going to good causes.