Sierra Club - Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

If the 5,000 people who checked out the feature were even a tiny bit more inspired to work the issue with their elected representatives, who's to say it didn't put us over the top? - Eric Antebi, former National Press Secretary, Sierra Club

Introduction

The Sierra Club's motto is "Explore, Enjoy, and Protect the Planet." As the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in America, we have either led or been instrumental in nearly all of the major conservation campaigns in America. Currently, we are focused on smart energy solutions and green lifestyles as ways to curb runaway global warming.

Google Earth was one of the most popular exhibitors at the Sierra Summit, the Club's national convention, which was held in San Francisco's Moscone Center in September, 2005. The event took place shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the US, so interest in the region's geography was high. Attendees were amazed to see the "before and after" imagery of New Orleans and to hear stories of rescuers using Google Earth to locate some of those stranded in the flood.

At the Sierra Summit, members of the web team received a guided tour of the program, including Rebecca Moore's flyover of a proposed logging operation in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was immediately and abundantly clear that Google Earth could be a powerful tool in helping environmental organizations highlight habitat and land protection issues.

Protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has long been a top priority for the Club and, with Congress then threatening to open the area to oil and gas drilling (pro-drilling forces were trying to include projected oil revenue from ANWR drilling in a defense spending bill), Google Earth seemed like a perfect way to show-not just tell-people what was at stake in the remote locale.

As Pat Joseph, the Club's current affairs editor, later told National Geographic News, "It's as simple as seeing is believing."

Our KML Implementation

The project team was composed of three people: Mike Papciak, Adrian Cotter, and Pat Joseph. Adrian was the key member, as he did all of the data sourcing, graphics, and coding involved in actually creating the KML. Pat helped with writing and research for the text that accompanied the maps. Mike managed the project and created the landing page on our site, where visitors could find and download the KML.

We got the data from public sources: the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and Alaska Center for the Environment. Most of the KML was generated directly from Google Earth. However, for the oil well data, we used Excel and regular expressions in Homesite to convert a tab-delimited set of data in to well-formed KML. Some of the Fish and Wildlife data we got was more complex than needed (or than most users would want), so we essentially traced the original boundaries using the path tool in Google Earth to create a simpler data set.

The map focuses on Alaska's North Slope and includes boundary lines for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It highlights the contested 1002 Area-the coastal plain coveted by oil interests. The National Petroleum Reserve and the active oil fields around Prudhoe Bay are also featured. Additionally, the map includes Inupiat, Gwich'in and other human settlements, as well as the migratory routes of the Porcupine caribou herd and other wildlife in the region. Finally, we were able to trace the path of the trans-Alaskan pipeline and locate the thousands of active oil wells across the state of Alaska and on the North Slope, in particular. The idea is to show that ANWR is not the "barren nothingness" the oil lobby claims and that most of the North Slope is already heavily exploited. We are merely trying to save the last five percent of the land as wilderness.

We also used Google Maps. We took most of the data from the KMZ and converted it into a Google Maps version. We simplified some of the data further, and left out some of the heftier sources. One of the nice things about Google Maps is that you can more easily script the experience and place it in a context. Of course, you have to know how use JavaScript to do this.

Our main challenge was finding appropriate data that was in the right format and that we had the right to use. We got a lot of help from the Alaska Center for the Environment in finding public sources for data. (This project was completed in early 2006. We realize there are more sources of information now.)

Another challenge was to find a way to present the user with some guideposts to help lead them through the file. This mostly involved creating graphics that we placed on the map.

Now that we know what we can and cannot do, it's easier to plan the story we want to tell, write the text, and find images before we even set foot in the program. It's easier to do the editing and prep up front.

Exposure, Recognition, and Impact

The KML was published on our web site, which we publicized with a press release and on our blogs, Taking the Initiative and Compass. We also publicized it on the Google Earth Community BBS. It will be featured in an upcoming (fall, 2007) Sierra Magazine article on Google Earth as a mapping tool that that grassroots environmental activists - not just GIS specialists - can use to excellent effect.

The impact of our ANWR map is difficult to gauge, but we do know that repeated proposals to open the refuge to drilling have been narrowly defeated and that it remains off-limits to oil and gas drilling. Did our KML make a difference? As Eric Antebi, our national press secretary at the time, told a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, "If the 5,000 people who checked out the feature were even a tiny bit more inspired to work the issue with their elected representatives, who's to say it didn't put us over the top?"

Advice To Others

Give yourself time to figure out what you can do with the tool, and get comfortable with the interface before you start in earnest.

Once you have a decent idea of how Google Earth works, figure out the story you want to tell and the sequence of the story. Is it about comparing one area to another (virgin forest versus clearcut)? Is it a series of things that are tied together by a common thread (places someone has been)? Is it something that happens over time (so you can take advantage of the timeline tool)? What is it you want to show first? How are you going to guide a person through that story? It's good if you can have a lot of materials prepared in advance.

It is probably also different if you are presenting information to someone versus expecting people to look at it on their own. With the former, you can provide much of the context and explanation verbally or with other media. As an online experience, the story must stand on its own.

Final Thoughts

We think the existing oil wells KMZ file has the most impact. It's an immediately comprehensible graphical display of the huge number of wells already in operation in Alaska. We also find powerful the display of the small amount of ANWR land that we're trying to keep off-limits to drilling. . The unspoken question the map poses is: "Look how much you already have for drilling. Can't you just leave this little slice here?"

Links

From our site:
http://www.sierraclub.org/maps/arctic/arctic.kmz
http://www.sierraclub.org/arctic/maps/
http://www.sierraclub.org/compass/2006/01/atlas-flexed.asp

In the media:
GREEN Eyes in the Sky
Desktop satellite tools are changing the way environmentalists work
San Francisco Chronicle
By Gregory Dicum

Senate blocks oil drilling push for Arctic refuge
San Francisco Chronicle
By Zachary Coile

Satellite-Photo Atlas Uses Digital Globe to Show Eco Damage
National Geograhic News
By Joab Jackson

Authors

Pat Joseph, Writer/Editor
Mike Papciak, Website Manager & Webmaster
Adrian Cotter, Senior Webmaster

Contact

email: webmaster@sierraclub.org