As the first step in accurately documenting the lay of the land under their ownership, the National Mapping Organisations have spent huge amounts in establishing 'Benchmarks'. These meticulously surveyed and precisely marked locations are generally not known to the uninitiated. Most NMOs like to maintain the location and details of their geodetic benchmarks a secret. This is done with the sole purpose of protecting these monuments from inadvertent or purposeful vandalism.

With the emergence of GPS, some of the oldest NMOs have discontinued the regular maintenance of their BM networks. The Ordnance Survey has abandoned some 500,000 BMs since 2000. On the other hand, the Tacloban City Municipality in Philippines has recently started a 'Ground Control Point Adoption Program'. A Municipal Engineer is given the responsibility of the protection and conservation of BMs in their barangayas.

The extreme is however in glorifying these BMs in miniature pewter replicas and earrings- they do look cute though...