Words by Smiley Team
As a symbol of Mother Earth, sea turtles are said to carry the world on their back – an ancient idea that appears to have been forgotten. With mounting plastic pollution in oceans, sea turtles and the planet are under increasing pressure.
In an effort to nurture these revered creatures back to recovery an online metaverse is fundraising to tackle ocean plastic waste around World Turtle Day.
The metaverse, Next Earth, is selling patches of digital land for internet users to purchase. From the proceeds, 20% will go to SEE Turtles, a charity working to clean up the beach habitats of sea turtles.
Noemi Magyar, the head of CSR at Next Earth, explained: "With this campaign, Next Earth is building a bridge between the virtual and the real world, where the bridge is social responsibility.
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“To this whole experience, we are adding an extra with a gamification feature. Though our community members are physically far from the locations where our partner organisation, SEE Turtles, will carry out their plastic projects, users can actively participate in the mission of getting rid of plastic waste."
After purchasing plots of land from Next Earth, gamers can clean up their digital plots in the knowledge that conservationists and volunteers will be cleaning up turtle habitats in real life.
The metaverse, which donates 10% of all its profits to charities, has so far raised $1 million for environmental initaitives.
Whoever buys land from Next Earth gets the chance to win $200,000 worth of NXTT and five NFTs created by TinyWasteland, a photographer who creates scenes out of everyday and miniature objects.
DONATE: Help fund the protection of sea turtles by donating to conservation charity SEE Turtles.
GET INVOLVED: Help a team of volunteers to help save sea turtles. Join a SEE Turtle conservation tour.
