Google Earth Outreach available in Africa

Several non-profit organisations have already made use of Google Earth as part of their ongoing projects for enviromental conservation.

The Save the Elephants project in Mali shows the organisations effort to protect the last of the Mali Desert Elephants. The project uses KML touring, a feature in Google Earth 5.0 and above, which enables non-profit and other public benefit groups to tell their story with a narrated tour. The narrator in this instance is Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants in Samburu, Kenya. Download the tour.

The Mapping Africa's Protected Areas Project (MAPA), has mapped Africa's parks and reserves in Southern and East Africa highlighting information that includes park boundaries, GPS tracks, images, etc. Download the MAPA Google Earth file.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently released their new Uganda Atlas of Our Changing Environment, in which they have mapped areas of drastic environmental change using historical imagery for 11 sites in Uganda. They have also created narrated Google Earth tours for four locations of environmental change: the City of Kampala, Mabira Forest Reserve, Mount Elgon, and the Mau Complex.

Go to http://earth.google.com/outreach/africa.html for more information and to apply for a Google Earth Pro software grant, and get training materials on various Google Geo products.

Source: Google Lat Long Blog