Earth Day Dialogues will Result in Green Map for Miami Beach 

Miami Beach , FL – The City of Miami Beach is developing a Green Map to be a useful tool for residents and visitors interested in exploring the beautiful island city. To develop this map, the City has established a partnership with the Green Map System, Inc. and the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce.

 Together, the partners will be facilitating an “Earth Day Dialogue,” to take place on Earth Day 2003 (Tuesday, April 22, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at 610 Espanola Way , Miami Beach ), as part of the Miami Beach ’s Community Development Week celebration. Miami Beach residents are invited to participate and “map” the City’s green places, environmental resources and socially significant sites. 

The City’s Green Map will illuminate the interconnections between the Miami Beach community, nature and the City’s built environment, helping residents make lower impact lifestyle choices and discover great ways to get involved in the urban ecology, and simultaneously guide visitors (including virtual ones) to successful initiatives they can replicate back home.  “The mission of our Green Map will be to strengthen the community's awareness of and connection to the urban ecology through a locally created visual representation of our environment,” said Bruce Henderson, Miami Beach Environmental Resources Management coordinator. “It will be a collaborative environmental social project that will be a direct, democratic communication, dependent on local knowledge, action and responsibility.”  

Once completed, the City of Miami Beach Green Map will be available as a pocket-sized reference to visitors and residents and will be available for the international community as well online at the Green Map System web site www.greenmap.com.  
 
Miami Beach-area schools have formed teams of “Youth Mapmakers” to develop a map and contribute to the Earth Day dialogue. The children have considered which places of interest they would like to include in the map and to develop icons and symbols for use on the map. The youth maps will be presented at the Miami Beach Earth Dialogue.  (Note: Corporate sponsors of a Green Map are welcome but they must not be allowed to influence the Map's contents. Their logo may appear in a list of credits, but they cannot be involved in selecting sites and topics for the Green Map.) 
 
For more information or to request mapping materials, please contact Housing and Community Development Director Joanna Revelo at 305-673-7260. 

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Call 305-673-7575/VOICE to request material in accessible format, sign language interpreter (five days in advance), or information on access for persons with disabilities.