A new and much simplified version of EARTHscope™ has been developed to feature geo-stories about key fronts in the race to protect the web of life. The EARTHScope content is part of an online campaign focused on human induced mass extinction, an issue that has reached crisis proportions but has yet to reach a tippping point of public awareness like global warming.

BFI's web based geo-story telling tool was incorporated into the campaign as a way to provide a 'learn more' option to viewers of The (Bio) Da Versity Code, an animated parody of The Da Vinci Code which serves as a highly engaging front end to the campaign. BFI produced the accompanying geo-stories with scientific and editorial advice from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

A notable group of leading conservation organizations is participating in a coordinated e-blast to approximately 1,000,000 constituents to launch the campaign. Launch partners include the World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, The Center for Biological Diversity, The World Conservation Union, The Endangered Species Coalition, and the Species Alliance.

The EARTHscope™ presentation begins with a short narrated slide show overview of the extinction issue which takes viewers to an elegant map based navigation scheme featuring a choice of two different versions of the Fuller Projection. There are 5 geo-stories to choose from, three explore threats to and conservation of three distinct yet related ecosystems; mangrove forests, the amazon rainforest, and coral reefs, and two delve into significant drivers of biodiversity loss; global warming and invasive species.

Each geo-story contains an introductory narrated slide show and five to eight chapters or sections complete with text, references, pop-up maps, charts, photos and hyperlinks. The content provided to date for such a complex and far reaching topic is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Fortunately, the new EARTHscope platform makes it cost effective and simple to add new content modules.

The campaign was funded by the Threshold Foundation which is seeking to use new media to proactively address societal awareness of mass extinction and our responsibility in creating and reversing it.

» Check out EARTHscope™