30,000 square kilometers of forest area has been fenced off and the number keeps increasing daily because new volunteers are checking-in at all forest area around Thailand. So far, 350,534 Tourists turned themselves into volunteers and helped spread our message to their friends by checking-in and sharing our locations. Gaining around 7,000,000 impressions, this campaign has earned about US$550,000 of free media. With the power of social media, a million dollars worth of national resources are being watched over by more than 1,000,000 pairs of eyes per year.

The world's first location-based media on dropped pins.

To protect the forest, the troop enters the protected area to drop pins and names the pin "This area is a part of the protected forest. Check-in and share this location if you see any trespass." Then all dropped pins become virtual media. When people come to the area and check-in, they will see the message which they can share to help spread the message.

Background:

Seub-Nakhasathien Foundation is Thailand’s most famous foundation created to promote nature conservation and wildlife preservation. The foundation had found out that in the past 30 years, Thailand had lost more than a quarter of forest area. Protected forests were trespassed and turned into resorts, farms, and golf courses because the boundaries between “legal” and “illegal” were never clearly defined. Since most Thai people have no knowledge about this problem, Seub-Nakhasathien Foundation wants to find an easy way to enhance awareness and develop mechanisms to encourage active participation in the forest conservation.

Insight:

Thai tourists always check-in and share their locations on social network from their smartphones.

Idea:

THE VIRTUAL FENCE PROJECT, for the first time ever, we can virtually pin point borderlines and reclaim forest territories, using Foursquare, Facebook Check-In, and Google+ Check-In, which are widely used among smartphone users, to promote forest conservation.