By Andrea Fox, Efficientgov Senior Editor
Lima, Peru — Vultures Warn, You Act is the slogan for a campaign by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Peru’s Ministry of Environment.
Gallinazo Avisa, Spanish for Vultures Warn, is a project creating an online map of the city’s rampant illegal dumps. The locations are spotted by 10 of the national zoo’s most vigilant vultures fitted with solar-powered GPS devices and GoPro cameras.
The accompanying TV ad recruits citizens to join a cross-species alliance that tracks down garbage dumps polluting the city’s air, water, and Earth and uploads the coordinates to a live map. Erik Janowsky, USAID’s deputy mission director in Peru, told American City & County that the public is responding and the vultures have found new popularity at the zoo1. “They’ve become sort of dark superhero figures,” he told the magazine.
This isn’t the first time a city has called upon the public and others to report on and address illegal dumps. New York City’s Illegal Dumping Reward Program encourages citizens to rat others out, and if they do, they can receive half of the fine collected, but only if they witness the act of illegal dumping and fill out an affidavit that leads to an actual conviction2. Oregon’s Metro, which manages operations for Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties, asks citizens to activate RID, the Regional Illegal Dumping Patrol, through local police. RID will send inmate crews from Multnomah County’s Inverness Jail to clean it up3.
Illicit trash be warned--vultures, jailbirds, and rats will find you.
