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Building a New & Inclusive Green Mapmaking Website

This season, Green Map System is focused on the creation of the OpenGreenMap. Moving from the concept stage to designing a robust and fun-to-use interactive mapmaking tool has our team jumping. You jumped too – your votes helped this become a Featured Project in the NetSquared Mashup Challenge! As we move toward the mid-2008 public launch, this 'remixing the web for social change' conference will bring our project together with 20 others for well-timed development support.

OpenGreenMap is the finalized name for this project. Designed to involve a great diversity of people in bringing sustainable living to light, the website is already being tested and integrated with other online resources including GreenMap.org. Our upcoming presentations (listed below) will preview it, including our May 21st Top Ten Party - thanks again to our America's Giving Challenge donors who seeded this project! Find out more and discuss this social media project in progress at OpenGreenMap.org.

Green Map Board of Directors News

Our projects, large and small, often take a giant leap forward once our Board gets involved. These wonderful, talented individuals have devoted many hours towards our nonprofit organization's effectiveness. A special thank you to outgoing member DK Holland (of DK Holland LLC – affiliations for identity purposes only) who skillfully guided our 2006-07 branding and outreach campaign! She was replaced as Vice President by Sara S. Tucker (Dia Art Foundation), who has served on the Board since inception and contributed to Green Map's development since 1995. Welcome to our newest member, Andrew Van Der Laan (Random House), joining Joshua Arnow (WorldLink Foundation), President Carter Craft (Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance), Treasurer Alice Hartley (Cook+Fox) and Secretary Wendy E. Brawer (Green Map System). Each deserves a big bouquet of spring blossoms for their dedicated years of service to the Green Map movement!

Local Impacts – Global Connections

Charting the impacts of our work in 20 diverse vignettes, our latest collaboratively-authored book was released by Aichi Japan's Green Mapmaker, Keiko Nakagawa this week! Watch for news on the English edition later in the year.

Newly selected as the pilot project for UNEP's Green Passport project, the Parati Green Map project has sustainable tourism as its goal. Led by Dr. Claudia Green, students of tourism management at NYC's Pace University have been working with this Brazilian community for three years. We are looking forward to seeing how this model impacts tourism worldwide!

In December 2006, Green Map System began distributing our local Compost Green Map of Manhattan, together with our project partner, Lower East Side Ecology Center. LESEC also collects compostable food scraps from customers at the Union Square Greenmarket. Already, Saturday collection has increased over 300%, according to director Christine Datz-Romero, and doubled at their other collection site. We're so pleased to see this most efficient and regenerative form of recycling grow that we're starting to plan our 3rd printing of this popular little map/composting poster. Download it or pick one up in Union Square.

Events & Launches

Yesterday, the Baltimore Maryland Green Map went live. It's the first to utilize Green Map Icons Version 3! More April launches: Houston Texas, Waterford Ireland and Santiago Chile, where the latest in Ciudad Viva's terrific series of Green Maps will debut.

Early May's Community University Expo is based at Canada's verdant University of Victoria – it's also the centerpoint of a vibrant regional Green Map project led by Maeve Lydon and Ken Josephson, who have organized a great gathering of Green Mapmakers from Latin American and Pacific Northwest communities.

Our Director, Wendy Brawer will be taking part in the launch of the first printed map to use V3 Icons, the Bucharest Green Map with Mapmaker Ciprian Samoila in Romania, then joining Susanna Iraci, Milan Italy's Mapmaker to present during the city's famous Salone design fair at the 20th anniversary of the O2 Global Network. Both Wendy and Toyko Mapmaker Masahiro Horiuchi will present at the EcoCity World Summit in San Francisco. Catch Jakarta Mapmaker Marco Kusumawijaya at FarmLab in Los Angeles on May 2, too!

In New York City: Find our updated iconography at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center (540 W 21), honored and exhibited through April 19. At the Baum Forum (April 11-12) and the Science Council of NYC educator conference (April 12), we'll be presenting our exploration modules and previewing the Green Schools Green Map! Save the date: Saturday, May 17 for our Green Apple Downtown Cycling Tour (11am, Tompkins Square Park), and Wednesday May 21, for our Top Ten Party (5-8pm, 220A East 4th St.) – all are welcome to our Manhattan events.

Green Maps help you make everyday Earth Day. The official date - April 22 - is a great time to get your green on!