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MARS

a geotagging film

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Let’s Talk About Geotagging

MARS 8K is, of course, not filmed on Mars, it’s filmed on public lands in the U.S. This is a short film produced to contribute to the conversation around geotagging on our public lands and natural spaces.

The scenes captured within this short film may look other-worldly, but they are just one small part of a network of fragile public lands that are preserved for our benefit, but that also require our care. While adequate protections exist to protect many of our more famous parks, the vast majority of our public lands actually have little to no protections at all. So what does this mean for us and the lands we love?

The Film

Is Not Geotagging Elitist?

Yea, kinda… We all can wrap our heads around the downsides to geotagging – overcrowding, protection issues, etc – but what about the other side of the argument? Isn’t not geotagging, keeping a place’s location hidden or concealed, pretty elitist?

Why should you get that place “all to yourself” and keep others from discovering it. A CNT article referred to it as “gatekeeping in the outdoors”. Shouldn’t we all have the same access to these places and not just the “inside influencer circles”?

So what’s next?

At More Than Just Parks we are public lands advocates. We do not claim to have all the answers around this sensitive topic but want to use our platform to bring voices to the table and further the conversation.

Questions we need to ask ourselves include:

• Where is geo-tagging acceptable?
• Is geotagging the problem or a symptom of a larger problem?
• Is it a geotagging issue or a protections issue?
• How can we improve and further the conversation?

We plan to update this post periodically as we learn more about the issue ourselves. Please drop a comment below and let us know what you think. Feel free to chat about the images in the film but we encourage you to dive deeper into the questions we pose. Let’s keep things civil, we all care about our public lands.

• National Geographic – When Not to Geotag While Traveling
• Travel + Leisure – How Your Instagram Geotag Might Be Putting Wild Animals and Natural Areas at Risk Around the World
• Conde Nast Traveler – The Geotagging Debate Is Really About Gatekeeping in the Outdoors