The Nature Conservancy Enlists VR to Fight Real World Issues

• The Nature Conservancy and MPC use immersive experience design to help users face the reality of global threats.
• Conservation group recognized the potential of virtual reality to move people to action in the real world.

Renowned global conservation group The Nature Conservancy teamed up with Technicolor’s award-winning VFX brand MPC to educate the public about a deep and growing concern – unsustainable and illegal fishing practices – and they’re using virtual reality and immersive experiences to hook our attention. Called This is Our Future, the project is a series of Kickstarter-like campaigns designed to address global threats, starting with the Pacific tuna fishery.

“This collaboration gave us the opportunity to create the type of real-time interactive experience we’re interested in seeing,” explained Tim Dillon, Executive Producer, MPC VR. “We are using virtual reality and experience design to highlight issues that sometimes don’t get the focus they deserve. In this new medium, we’ve got people’s undivided attention.”

With tuna stocks at risk – along with vulnerable species and the economies of small Pacific Island nations – the campaign is akin to staging a technological intervention, in a bid to transform the industry using tech-enabled monitoring and data tagging.

The virtual reality journey takes viewers through huge scale gallery spaces where – through an immersive, interactive experience – they can discover the issues threatening the fishery for themselves. For example, instead of telling viewers to look up, sound is used to make them want to look up. When “where to look” becomes the viewer’s idea, “what they see” becomes their own discovery – and hopefully call to action.

The experience can be viewed through Samsung Gear VR, YouTube, and Facebook 360, with the optimum viewing version soon releasing on Oculus Rift.

The immersive VR experience MPC Advertising designed for The Nature Conservancy will be featured at CES 2017.

Experience the 360 video for This Is Our Future and learn more about this important issue.