Cause Marketing

Teaming up with Minecraft

Minecraft is bringing conservation to the gaming world through interactive play.

Bryce Canyon National Park Hoodoos exist in great numbers at Bryce Canyon, where the most famous ones have names like Thor’s Hammer and Queen Victoria. © Nick Hall

As world leaders in conservation, we at TNC know that community support and collaboration are key to achieving our goals to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends. The more attention we can bring to our planet's needs, the more we can inspire action that can make a real difference in addressing key conservation issues.

That's why we're teaming up with Minecraft — to raise funds and bring conservation awareness to new audiences for the next generation.

Minecraft National Park: A new Minecraft map to benefit TNC

In celebration of its 15-year anniversary, Minecraft is launching a new interactive map: Minecraft National Park. Players can explore the beauty of the natural world by experiencing nine diverse ecosystems within the game: grasslands, taiga, tundra, cloud forest, jungle, savannah, dry forest, ocean and wetlands. Each area contains a park ranger station where players can learn about these natural habitats and their inhabitants through experiences like wildlife crossings. The map is available for download from the Minecraft Marketplace.

**Turtle Crossing** A crossing sign warns motorists to be on the lookout for turtles making their way across Highway 84. © Derek Montgomery

Real-World Conservation

Human development of roads, highways, culverts and more have broken up habitat and make it difficult for animals to move naturally to find food, shelter, or even mates. Minecraft's support helps TNC with conservation projects like real-life wildlife crossings. TNC works with public and private entities to identify and implement solutions like wildlife shelves and animal-friendly over-passes to help protect and restore wildlife connectivity.

Read about TNC's work to implement wildlife crossings

Check out a few TNC projects that help species like the bear, bobcat, moose, and more.

How Does the Bobcat Cross the Mass Pike

TNC in Massachusetts is leading an effort to assess and map culverts under Interstate 90 to identify those that can serve as corridors for wildlife to pass under the road.

Vermont: Staying Connected

Highways, bridges and habitat destruction and fragmentation create obstacles to wildlife movement and compromise the health of species. Find out how we're working to help wildlife stay connected.

Wildlife Collisions

Nature Conservancy scientists are studying how to reduce vehicle collisions with wildlife in Wyoming.

The Panther's Path

The Florida panther, once nearly extinct, is facing new threats as it roams the state. Protecting key wildlife corridors and expanding safe spaces could make all the difference.

By Eric Seeger

Past Campaigns

TNC and Minecraft have teamed up in the past! Check out our previous campaigns below.

Rooted Together Campaign: Focusing on Mangroves

Healthy mangrove forests are hotspots of biodiversity, cornerstones of climate resilience and a source of livelihoods for coastal communities worldwide. Mangrove trees can absorb four times more carbon than terrestrial trees, making them critical to addressing the climate crisis. But mangroves are under threat, largely due to human activity.

Minecraft Mangroves: Making an Impact The Minecraft community raised over 227,000 USD and awareness for real world mangrove tree restoration. Check out the Rooted Together map with Grian, Wild, Authentic Games and Stacyplays, and the work TNC supports in Kenya by the Mtangawanda Women’s Association.

To help bring attention to the plight of mangroves and the urgently important benefits they provide, Minecraft created Rooted Together, an interactive map where players can explore a mangrove-based ecosystem in-game.

Players can plant mangroves, measure CO2 levels, and see new wildlife in the game, creating an interactive demonstration of how climate trends and biodiversity depend on the health of the mangrove habitat. The more mangroves players plant, the less dangerous climate change becomes, and the more animals will be able to return to their homes.

Mangrove oyster habitat along the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico — **Mangrove oyster habitat** Oysters grow on the mangrove coastline of Charlotte Harbor Estuary near Punta Gorda, Florida located on the Gulf of Mexico. © Carlton Ward Jr.

Supporting Conservation at TNC

In addition to the in-game interaction with mangrove ecosystems, Mojang Studios contributed $200,000 to TNC in support of our mission. Minecraft creators hosted individual charity streams this past July reaching 33,500 live viewers and over 350,000 video on demand views. These creators played Minecraft live and helped educate viewers about the importance of mangroves worldwide, as well as shared some of TNC's efforts to protect and restore this important ecosystem.

Learn more about the State of the World's Mangroves and TNC's efforts to protect and restore this important ecosystem.

Coral Crafters Campaign: Focusing on Coral Reefs

Coral Crafters – How Minecraft Helped the Oceans! To celebrate the Minecraft Update Aquatic, Minecraft has been working with TNC and other partners to help the real-world oceans, through Coral Crafters – a project to help coral reefs!

Joining The Nature Conservancy in its coral restoration efforts, Minecraft created a way to protect and restore coral reefs through play. With the launch of its Update Aquatic in 2018, Minecraft invited gamers to build with coral in-game to help restore and regrow coral in real life. Shortly after the update launched, it took players only two days to place more than 10 million coral blocks in game, prompting Minecraft to contribute $100,000 to TNC.

**Minecraft Coral Crafter Skin Pack** Microsoft Minecraft's Coral Crafter Skin Pack proceeds go to The Nature Conservancy.

**Minecraft** Minecraft’s in-game oceans include five new coral reefs to build – staghorn, brain, fire, bubble and tube.

Additionally, Minecraft contributed the net proceeds from its Coral Crafters Skin Pack, a selection of sea-worthy skins from Ocean Explorer to Sea Pickle Monster, to support TNC’s coral restoration work.

Coral Reefs Need Help Now

Coral reefs are some of the most important ecosystems we have in the world. Unless we take immediate action, scientists estimate that we could lose up to 70 percent of coral reefs by 2050.

Click here to learn more about the Conservancy’s coral restoration efforts.

A mangrove forest with oysters growing at their roots along the edge of a body of water.

Ensuring a Future for Mangroves in the United States

TNC is working with partners to facilitate the science, tools and projects needed to ensure a future for mangroves and the coastal communities and wildlife that depend on them.

Colorful, healthy corals form a thriving reef in clear, turquoise waters in The Bahamas.

How Science and Innovation Can Save Caribbean Coral Reefs

Explore how we're scaling up coral restoration and mobilizing world-class science to save imperiled reefs before it's too late.

Elkhorn coral spawning in the U.S. Virgin Islands

First Successful Coral Sexual Reproduction Expedition In The Virgin Islands

For the first time in the Virgin Islands, The Nature Conservancy and partner SECORE International conducted a successful coral spawning expedition to grow healthy baby corals.

Teaming up with Minecraft