Participatory Mapping and Indigenous Communities

Participatory mapping is an emerging tool to empower local communities and indigenous peoples to become more involved in natural resource management and environmental protection. The Center for the Support of Native Lands has been a pioneer in participatory mapping, particularly of indigenous lands in Central and South America, but also in Africa and Southeast Asia. Since the early 1990s, Native Lands has refined its methodology, which is set forth in Indigenous Landscapes: A Study in Ethnocartography (2001). This in-depth analysis of participatory mapping projects constitutes a practical guide to community mapping with indigenous peoples worldwide.


Indigenous Landscapes describes an approach consisting of three to workshops interspersed with two fieldwork periods. This typically takes approximately three to four months. Project participants are indigenous researchers, a small cartography team, and project directors. Indigenous researchers chosen by the communities gather data for the maps, which contain three types of information: (1) the salient features, natural and man-made, of the territory being mapped (rivers, creeks, swamps, hills; villages, roads, trails), together with their names; (2) zones used for subsistence activities (hunting; fishing; farming; gathering of medicines, fruit, and building materials; and any other significant cultural use area); and (3) areas of cultural and spiritual importance. During the process, the cartographers assist the indigenous people to put this information onto cartographically accurate maps. The first workshop, of a week in duration, orients participants to the process and discusses data gathering techniques, map symbolism, and the general structure of the project. The indigenous researchers then spend approximately one month in their communities piecing together information from village elders and those knowledgeable about the forest and placing this information on hand-drawn sketch maps. At the end of this period, they return for a second workshop in which they work with the cartographic team to transcribe this information onto georeferenced maps. Over a period of two to three weeks, the researchers and the cartographers work with field data, aerial photographs, satellite images, and government base maps, cross-checking the different types of evidence to produce a new map containing a wealth of cultural information of the region. When this is completed, the researchers return to the communities to verify the draft maps, fill in gaps, clear up confusions, and generally fine-tune the maps. There is ample time at this juncture for the villages to discuss a variety of issues among themselves. In the third workshop the researchers work with the cartographic team to finalize the maps.

Participatory mapping has proven to be an integral tool to informed decisionmaking, environmental protection, and empowerment of indigenous and traditional peoples. The maps have been used as a basis for designating biosphere reserves and indigenous areas, as well as developing management plans for national parks. The maps and the process of developing the maps have strengthened community-based natural resource management, and are used in local schools. They have identified and fortified connections between forest protection and indigenous territories. By fostering conservation partnerships, illegal logging has diminished significantly in certain mapped areas. Developing the maps have built local capacity and stimulated the formation of strategic alliances nationally and regionally through exchange of information and discussion of common problems and strategies. Accordingly, indigenous peoples today are participating more fully than they were a decade earlier in decisions affecting their homelands, their natural resources, and their cultures.

For more information, see http://www.nativelands.org