The Vashon Greenmapping Program is designed to create a visual inventory of natural, cultural, and green living resources on Vashon. The program involves creating both a product, an attractive and accessible map, and a dynamic process of generating inclusive community awareness and participation toward a sustainable future. Through the Greenmapping Program SEEDS aims to strengthen local-global sustainability networks, to expand the demand for healthier, greener choices, to stimulate and celebrate ecological citizenship, to provide tools for citizens and planners, and to help successful initiatives spread to more and more communities.
Our Vashon greenmapping efforts are guided by Beth Ferguson, who has worked with Wendy Brawer and the Green Map System of universally recognized map icons. Beth has created widely used green maps in Victoria, B.C. and in Cuba, and led a workshop on Vashon last May, 2008.
At the Saturday Market during the coming months we will gather suggestions from participants at the Greenmapping table. We plan to gather additional input from programs in the schools during the fall, as well as other public events this winter. From this community input we will create our Green Map of Vashon, version #1. In the Spring of 2009 we will have a festival and procession on Vashon to publicly release the Vashon Green Map. We are working in collaboration with a number of Vashon organizations, including Sustainable Vashon, which provided a seed grant for this program; the Backbone Campaign, which has agreed to provide some of its Procession for the Future puppets for our release celebration, and Sustainable Tourism on Vashon (STOV), which will feature information about the greenmapping program on the STOV website.
