Perhaps a leaf on online campaigning could be taken from the site of what is (arguably) the world's most aggressive environmental activist group, Greenpeace. This Web site has extensive information on current campaigns and almost daily press releases, plus 14 mailing lists constantly updating subscribers on specific areas of interest. There is also a cyberactivist team which involves subscribers "emailing an offender regarding their abuse of the environment" and forwarding replies to the group.
According to its most recent statistics, the site's homepage records an average of over 130,000 hits a day. On September 27, the site had a whopping 148,115 hits as an example of its popularity.
Aware of the need to harness the Net's power, at least two major green groups in Malaysia were prompted to order revamps of their Web sites recently--even outsourcing the design and appointing full-time Webmasters.
A minimum six months is being spent to massively re-work the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia Web site by early next year, said Web coordinator Claris Loke. In fact, the international Web site is also being redesigned and expanded.
Besides disseminating information, the Malaysian chapter's new Web site will also be used for fundraising and online sales of WWF products. "We hope to update the site every week or more frequently, have mailing lists, and also put our Kawan WWF (Friends of WWF) newsletter on the Net," said Loke.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Nature Society's (MNS), Web site revamp is aimed at re-organizing the information properly, said project coordinator Andrew Sebastian.
"We're going to put in archives of press releases, conference papers, and lists of queries from members. And because we also cater to the scientific community, we're setting up a library of stories and specific topics like, say, insects, to be featured every month," said Sebastian who expects the new site to be up by mid-November.
He added that MNS, one of the largest environmental organizations in the country, is looking at new ways to get members more involved in issues via the Net.
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