Hands on Culture - Participatory 3D Modelling with Mandingalbay Yidinji People in Australia

This video is about the 3D mapping project of the Mandingalbay people near Yarrabah North Queensland. This project was supported by the Wet Tropics Management Authority, IUCN and CTA to producing a short film based on the amazing project the community took on to bring their 3D mapping project to life.

Di mbei di dee Saamaka sëmbë mbei di ageesi kaita de seei u de sa seeka sondi u de (video voiced in Saamaka)

Feifi teni jaa pasa kaa, di wan feifi dusu Saamaka sёmbё so bi abi u voloisi di de mbei di dan. De bi abi u kumutu disi di kamian te ka dee gaan sёmbё u de bi ta libi a di Saamaka lio. Te ku di daka u tide di voloisi aki dё a de pakisei eti. Dee Saamaka sёmbё dee ta de a moo libasё u di Saamaka lio ta abi umёni boöko hedi, we bika de an feni leti u di matu jeti. So seei pasi ta mbei ta ko a di kamian te ka de ta libi. Di mbei u di ageesi kaita u di tan kamian u de, ta konda fa de seei ta si di libi u de, fa de ta woko ku di matu, so sei di kaita sa heepi de u gaan lanti sa fusutan de moo bunu u de ta sa a wan taki a dee sondi di ta pasa a di konde.

Version française: http://goo.gl/ggXyw5
English version: http://goo.gl/hS5nKb

Speaking of Home - The story of the Mount Elgon Ogiek

The Ogiek peoples live on the slopes of Mount Elgon in Kenya. This documentary shows the Ogiek's relationship to their homeland and to the world.

As indigenous peoples without official minority status in Kenya, the Ogiek have gone through evictions from their native land for decades. Time after another they have returned to their land to continue living in the forest.

The documentary is the Ogiek's story, in their own words, of their hopes before the 2013 Kenyan elections. It was filmed in Chepkitale, Mt. Elgon in 2012 during a 3D mapping workshop.

Through developing a 3D map of their land, the Ogiek not only strengthen their cultural identity, but can show that the land said to belong to someone else, is rightfully theirs.

Credits: The film has been produced by SHALIN Suomi Ry and has been featured at the Helsinki African Film Festival.

More on the case is found here.

Knowledge and cultural transmission in Kenyan participatory 3D mapping

This film interview of Dr. Nigel Crawhall, Director of Secretariat at the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), is his explanation of the intergenerational ecological knowledge transmission in participatory 3-dimensional modelling (P3DM). Crawhall discusses his observations on intergenerational interaction when the Ogiek community of Nessuit, Kenya, built a geo-referenced 3D model of their mountain forest landscape in 2006.



The mapping exercise was attended by representatives from 21 Ogiek clans, and an area of 52,800 hectares (ha) was mapped at a scale of 1:10,000. Participants included close to 120 representatives from the different clans, both men and women. Elders populated the model with their memories dating back to 1925 and reconstructed the landscape as it was at that time. The model displays 64 data layers including different types of areas, points, and lines. In 2008, the Ogiek people expanded the coverage of the model to include further 40,000 ha.

This kind of physical 3D model creation can serve the community for the following:

• Generating spatial geo-referenced data based on a community perspective on land use, vegetation cover, resource distribution, tenure, etc;
• Storing and displaying such data at a community level;
• Supporting intra- and inter-generational knowledge exchange;
• Adding value and authority to local knowledge;
• Involving communities in developing resource use and management knowledge;
• Conducting preliminary collaborative research on distribution of species;
• Monitoring jointly with the concerned stakeholders' changes in land use, vegetation cover, human settlement, infrastructure development, and other features;
• Serving as a benchmark; and
• Supporting the learning of local geography and resource use.

The purpose of the model was to record traditional territory and land use patterns, as well as memory and history from a land use and environmental perspective. As reported here, through map building and coding, the clan experienced participatory community enthusiasm and cooperation between elders, young adults, and youth on intergenerational knowledge, language, and heritage transfer, tapping knowledge otherwise lost over time. The 3D style of the map encouraged explanation of the clan’s historical land use patterns and included creating a key or legend to increase understanding of the interrelationships of land, vegetation, altitude, and layers more of information, leading to more complex environmental knowledge that other methods, for example walking on the land, might not provide.

In addition, young people gave attention to the process and listened while elders debated historical use patterns from their memories. A linguistic dimension, which evolved due to the use of English, Kiswahili, and Ogiek, drew out more explicit meaning of vocabulary in Ogiek. Intergenerational knowledge transfer affirmed the elders' lived experience, and the process transferred to the younger members of the community the realisation of the complexity of their environment and the depth of knowledge available to them through their elders.

Source: The Communication Initiative

More information on the case is found here.

The Right to be Different: Struggle for Water and Identity in the Andes

In the parish of Licto, near Riobamba, in Ecuador, the indigenous population fought for its water. Indian peasants participated in the design, construction and organisation of the irrigation system. After more than 20 years the water finally reached the community. The story is told by Inés Chapi, an Indian woman, who came a long way from being oppressed and discriminated against to become a most respected irrigation organiser in the system.  In the Andes they call it blood of the earth, the source of life from which other life grows. Water, feeding the land as well as the imagination. Giving rise to rituals and myths, fueling tradition and culture. Ancient and modern conquerors of these highlands denied the indigenous people access to springs and rivers. Water became a source of conflict. And usually the Indians got a raw deal.

Based on: The Rules of the Game and the Game of the Rules’ by Rutgerd Boelens; Executive producer and scenario: Barend Hazeleger; Photography: Thom Deelstra; Sound recordist: Juio Gorck; Editing: Jan Pieter Tuinstra & Barend Hazeleger; Scientific research and Interviews: Rutgerd Boelens; Produced by Agrapen and Wageningen University (2003)

More on the case: http://bit.ly/1OAlBsX

Le pouvoir de la cartographie participative en 3D chez les Saramacas du Suriname (video)

Il y a cinquante ans, quelque 5000 individus du peuple Saramaccan du Suriname ont dû quitter leurs terres traditionnelles, le long de la Rivière Suriname en raison de la construction d'un grand barrage. Les blessures de cette transmigration se font encore sentir aujourd'hui. Pendant ce temps, les Saramaccans qui vivent dans cette région font face à de nouveaux défis, car leurs droits territoriaux ne sont pas encore officiellement reconnus et les infrastructures routières pour accéder à la zone sont en voie d'amélioration. La création d'une maquette participative de la zone qui visualise et documente leurs traditions et l'utilisation traditionnelle des ressources contribue à surmonter leur frustration et leur redonner espoir.

English version: http://goo.gl/hS5nKb
Saamaka version: http://goo.gl/9XC2Jb

The enabling power of participatory 3D mapping among the Saramaccan Peoples of Suriname (Video)

Fifty years ago, some 5000 Saramaccan Peoples of Suriname had to leave their traditional lands along the Suriname River due to the construction of a major dam. The wounds of this transmigration are still felt today. Meanwhile, the Saramaccans who live in the Upper Suriname River area face new challenges since their territorial rights are not yet officially recognized and road infrastructure to access the area is improving. Creating a 3D model of the area that tells the inside story of their traditions and land use can help them to overcome their sense of being misunderstood by decision-makers and rediscover their voice.

Language versions:
Version française: http://goo.gl/ggXyw5
Saramaccan version: http://goo.gl/9XC2Jb

The 15 min video production "The enabling power of participatory 3D mapping among the Saramaccan People of Suriname" has been launched on October 9 at the 13th Caribbean Week of Agriculture in Paramaribo. The launch occurred during the session "Maps as media in policy processes: Bringing the 3rd dimension to the negotiating table" in the presence of representatives from the Saramaccan community.

The launch was followed by reflections done by Saramaccan representatives Mr Godfried Adjako, one of the captains of the village of Kaajapati, and Ms Debora Linga who spent her infancy with her grandparents on their farm on the shores of the Brokopondo Reservoir and later on kept visiting them in Ginginston village along the banks of the Upper Suriname River.

Mr Godfried Adjako recalled that in the process of populating the 3D model the community, especially the youth, learned a lot from the elders. "The map now shows our life, the Earth we live on, the Earth we walk on, the Earth without which we cannot live."

"We can use the map to take decisions on where to locate future developments", he added. Both men and women contributed to the map. "Women know a lot about the surrounding of the villages, while men who use to go hunting, know the most about far away areas."

Mr Adjako stated that when developing the legend ahead of the mapping exercise, the community decided to omit sensitive and confidential information. Therefore the data contained in the model and currently being digitised by Tropenbos international Suriname should be considered as publicly available.

The P3DM process has been a discovery journey for young Debora. "In the 60's my grandparents had to resettle because their village had been submerged by the rising waters of the Brokopondo Reservoir . They resettled along the Upper Suriname River in a village called Ginginston where I grew up. I could not understand the reason why my grandfather kept on navigating a long way along the river to reach the shores of the lake where he was growing watermelon" she said. "I discovered the reason while chatting with an elder who explained to me that transmigrating families were welcome by Saramaccan villages uphill the lake, but were granted limited access to resources. In fact they were sort of borrowing the land from people who occupied it for generations. Thus they only had access to small farming areas. In Saramaccan this is how you feel: they were living on somebody else's land."

Socially engaging, user-friendly, and user-useful approaches in ecosystem service research

Participatory 3D modelling was presented as a ground breaking approach to use in participatory ecosystem service research during the 8th Ecosystem Service Partnership Conference, held in Stellenbosch, South Africa from the 9th to the 13th of November 2015. The Conference saw the participation of around 380 scientists from around the globe.

Socially engaging, user-friendly, and user-useful approaches in ecosystem service research from CTA

The presentation by Sara Ramirez A socially engaging, user friendly and user-inspired approach in ecosystem research took place within the workshop “Indigenous peoples in their ecosystems’’. An ecosystem service research project was designed and implemented in Suriname, which used Participatory 3D Modelling (P3DM) to engage local communities in a process of co-producing knowledge about ecosystem services and competing land uses.

P3DM is an effective tool to involve scientist and local knowledge holders in an equally and transparent co-production of salient and legitimate knowledge about ecosystem services. Parallel to research outputs (of main interest to the researcher), a P3DM approach yields directly tangible outputs for the local communities which makes research inclusive and legitimate. Attendees during the session participated actively through questions and feedback.

Facilitating climate smart adaptation through the use of Participatory 3D Modelling by Neila Bobb-Prescott at the Caribbean-Pacific Agri-Food Forum in Barbados

#CPAF15 - Facilitating climate smart adaptation through the use of Participatory 3D Mapping from CTA

Participatory 3D Modelling or P3DM in short, is a community-based mapping method which is spreading in the Caribbean Region. It facilitates planning and action-taking on climate change related issues. Considering the potentials of the process, efforts are needed to promote the success stories of its use to date. This presentation at the Caribbean Pacific Agri-Food Forum in Barbados (206 November 2015) is an important step in promoting the practice in the region.

Neila Bobb-Prescott's participation in the 2nd Agribusiness Forum has been supported by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA)

Participatory mapping processes for data generation and exchange in SIDS by Aly DeGraff at the Caribbean-Pacific Agri-Food Forum in Barbados

Participatory mapping processes for data generation and exchange in SIDS from CTA

Participatory mapping is the solicitation and incorporation of geospatially focused local knowledge in bottom-up decision-making processes. It provides a wide decision-making base, taking into consideration the collaborative collection and validation of data while building ownership in the generated data. Participatory mapping can be used as a powerful tool to strengthen public participation in governance and social change in agribusiness communities.

Aly DeGraff delivered her talk at the Caribbean-Pacific Agri-Food Forum in Barbados organised by CTA and partners.

L’équipe samoane de cartographie participative a reçu un prix de développement durable

Le 25 septembre 2015, le département forestier du Ministère des ressources naturelles et de l’environnement des Samoa (MNRE) a reçu le prix de l’innovation et de l’excellence dans la fonction  publique dans la catégorie initiative en faveur d’un développement durable et respectueux de l’environnement pour la mise en œuvre du projet sur l’intégration des risques et de la résilience au changement  climatique dans la gestion des forêts  (ICCRIFS).

Le projet ICCRIFS Project s’étale sur une durée de quatre ans et est financé par  le Fonds pour l’environnement mondial (FEM, GEF en anglais) via le le programme des Nations Unies pour le développement  (PNUD). L’objectif du projet est d’intégrer les risques liés au changement climatique dans la gestion des forêts aux Samoa. Après une formation organisée en 2012 par le  Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA) portant sur l’utilisation de la modélisation participative en trois dimensions (MP3D), les équipes du projet ICCRIFS ont mis sur pied 18 exercices de MP3D à l’intention des communautés locales dans des domaines comme la gestion de l’eau, des forêts et le tourisme. Le premier modèle participatif en trois dimensions qui a été mis en œuvre  (il couvrait les villages s’étendant de Laulii à Falevao) est devenu un outil de plannification très efficace. Il a permis d’impliquer les gens en leur apportant des connaissances et des compétences en matière de gestion de l’environnement et en leur fournissant des outils pour s’adapter au changement climatique et en réduire les effets.

La remise des prix de l’innovation et de l’excellence dans la fonction publique a eu lieu le 25 septembre dans le cadre de la quatrième journée de la fonction publique. Cette journée est organisée pour commémorer, célébrer et reconnaître la contribution et le rôle de la fonction publique en vue du développement national des Samoa. Près de 50 ministères gouvernementaux et d’organismes publics ont pris part aux célébrations cette année.

Ces prix visent à saluer le dévouement que les fonctionnaires mettent à remplir la mission des ministères et départements pour lesquels ils travaillent. La désignation des lauréats potentiels a été demandée au grand public au mois d’août et ces choix ont ensuite été évalués par un panel indépendant de trois membres : le Président de la Chambre de commerce au nom du secteur privé, Vaasilifiti Moelagi Jackson (Président ad intermim de SUNGO) au nom de la société civile et le Président de la Commission.

Le grand public ainsi que les établissements scolaires étaient invités à cette occasion à communiquer avec les agences gouvernementales afin d’avoir une meilleure compréhension de leur rôle et de leurs fonctions, ainsi que de la manière dont ces agences ont une influence sur la vie de tous les jours.

Samoa’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment receives award for engaging civil society via participatory mapping

On 25 September 2015 the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Samoa (MNRE) received a Public Service Innovation and Excellence Award in the Environmental Friendly/Sustainable Development Initiative team category for the successful implementation of the Integration of Climate Change Risk and resilience into Forestry management in Samoa (ICCRIFS) Project.

The ICCRIFS Project is a 4 year project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The goal of the project is to integrate climate change risks into forestry management in Samoa. After being trained by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development (CTA) in practising Participatory Three-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM) in 2012, staff of the ICCRIFS Project successfully facilitated a total of 18 P3DM exercises with communities in various sectors including water, forestry, tourism. The first P3D Model to be implemented (covering villages from Laulii to Falevao) became a very effective planning tool. It helped engaging the community by building capacity, knowledge and skills on environmental management, and ways to adapt and mitigate climate change.

The 2015 Public Service Innovation and Excellence Awards ceremony, took place on the 25th of September 2015 as part of the 4th annual Public Service Day. The Public Service Day is held to commemorate, celebrate and recognize the public sector’s contribution and service into achieving the national development of Samoa. Close to 50 Government Ministries and Public Bodies took part in this year’s celebrations.

These Awards are used to recognize the dedication of public servants in achieving their respective Ministry’s and Office’s objectives. Nominations of potential awardees were solicited from the general public in August and were thereafter assessed by an independent panel consisting of 3 members: the Chamber of Commerce President on behalf of the private sector, SUNGO Interim President Vaasilifiti Moelagi Jackson on behalf of the civil society, and the Chairman of the Commission.

The general public as well as schools were invited to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with Government agencies to gain an in-depth understanding of the functions and roles of each of the participating agencies and how these relate to their everyday life.

Related post: Top UN officials Helen Clark and Naoko Ishii praising outcome of P3DM activities in Samoa

More information on the P3DM process and case studies are found here and here.