After observing the effects of illegal logging on the Surui indigenous people’s territory in Google Earth, Chief Almir Surui began using Google Earth to protect the rainforest and preserve his people’s way of living in harmony with the rain forest.

For over 20 years, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, has used Google Earth
to track, study, and protect elephants from poaching with geofences and satellite collars on elephants.

Willie Smits and Borneo Orangutan Survival used Google Earth as a platform for anyone to participate in the reforestation project by adopting acreage in the Samboja Lestari reforestation region.

The North Pacific Gyre, where garbage in the Pacific Ocean swirls in an eddy of indeterminable size, was the destination for the Kaisei Project . Tracking their path in Google Earth and Maps along the way, they experimented with turning plastic particles from the “Plastic Vortex” into diesel fuel.

Appalachian Voices, a grassroots environmental group in North Carolina, has educated millions of people, inluding policy-makers and legislators, about the destructive mining process called ‘mountaintop removal’ by flying people over the 470 mine sites in Appalachia in Google Earth.

Matt Cutts from the search quality team explains how Google Social Search works.

Maureen Heymans, Technical Lead, demonstrates the features of Google Social Search.