Tree People

New Zealanders are constantly bombarded with ‘green’ messages, and it’s all too easy to switch off. The Tree People team has therefore purposely avoided the ubiquitous carbon calculator, and has created an easy-to-use website to make the environmental campaign more attractive to children – the ?heirs? to the Earth. With the idea of ‘every little helps’, Tree people encourages users to adopt a virtual native tree in a remarkably detailed online forest, complete with its own miniature eco-system. In order to nurture the tree, users make pledges in the form of small lifestyle changes, and can watch as the tree grows according to a sophisticated algorithm. Each time a tree is viewed, a unique Flash Application graphically builds it to the correct height, as well as calculating a real-time growth-rate. Users are able create and join groups, give animated gifts to friends' trees, and win prizes. The constantly changing online environment gives members a powerful incentive to return to the website again and again to renew their pledges.