PGIS Tutorials by SEI, York, UK

These online video guides and slides provide practical information and examples on designing, planning, undertaking and then analysing community maps using GIS techniques. The video guides describe in detail the steps needed to prepare for community consultations using maps, examples of collection methods and then detailed information on how convert participatory maps into digital spatial databases. Finally there are example slide resources on how you can use community mapping and PGIS to improve environmental decision making outcomes.

Dialogue à trois sur le changement climatique

Le Paysan, Le Décideur, Le Chercheur Et La Cartographie Participative En Trois Dimensions 

Dans les nombreuses gares routières de Ndjaména, la capitale du Tchad, chaque voyageur, venu de l’intérieur du pays avec son balluchon de soucis, sait où trouver une oreille attentive. Les pas de Aladji Ibrahim le conduisent chez Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, la coordonnatrice d’AFPAT, une organisation de défense des droits des éleveurs peul bororos. Ainsi commence une histoire d’hommes, d’animaux, d’espace et de droits humains avec au centre un étrange personnage : une maquette en trois dimensions. Cet outil, trônant dans un local administratif à Baïbokoum, à près de 600 km de Ndjaména, se révèle un moyen inattendu pour favoriser le dialogue entre paysans, autorités locales, hommes de science et pouvoirs publics nationaux, tous préoccupés par le changement climatique, la diminution des conflits agriculteurs éleveurs, l’aménagement du territoire, la promotion des droits humains…


Dialogue à trois sur le changement climatique.

Ce documentaire boucle une trilogie de films, réalisés en trois temps.

Novembre 2011 :  IPACC et AFPAT co organisent, avec le soutien du Centre de coopération technique et agricole, le CTA, un atelier sur le pastoralisme, la connaissance traditionnelle, la météorologie et l’élaboration de politiques d’adaptation au changement climatique. La gouvernance climatique est au cœur des débats, avec autour de la table, des éleveurs autochtones d’Afrique du sud, du Kenya, de Namibie, du Niger et des météorologues, des ministres ainsi que des représentants d’organisations internationales. Il en ressort une déclaration dite de Ndjaména, qui acte l’urgence d’impliquer les couches vulnérables dans l’élaboration des politiques d’atténuation du changement climatique. L’utilisation d’approches participatives et d’outils de représentation de l’espace utilisables à l’échelle communautaire est recommandée.


Brousse de tous les dangers, carte de tous les espoirs.

Juillet – août 2012. L’atelier de Baïbokoum sur la cartographie participative en trois dimensions, avec comme thématique la prévention et la gestion des conflits agriculteurs et éleveurs, matérialise la recommandation de Ndjaména. La combinaison des savoirs des communautés autochtones et les compétences des facilitateurs expérimentés à aboutie à la réalisation d’une maquette en trois dimensions représentant en détail une superficie de 720 km2 à l’échelle de 1 : 10, 000.


Gouvernance climatique: Une question de survie pour les éleveurs nomades.

Un an après que devient la maquette, fruit de ce dialogue multi acteurs ? Le troisième documentaire (Le Paysan, Le Décideur, Le Chercheur Et La Cartographie Participative En Trois Dimensions) répond à cette question. Il raconte le voyage qu’entreprend Hindou Oumaraou Ibrahim à Baïbokoum. Sur place, elle découvre des éleveurs, des autorités à cran. Ils voudraient vulgariser la maquette auprès des agriculteurs, de la chefferie traditionnelle et dans les programmes locaux de développement. Mais ils sont démunis techniquement et financièrement. Leur cri du cœur remonte à Ndjaména, porté par l’infatigable avocate de la cause des éleveurs Peul bororos : Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles used for participatory mapping in Haiti

Since 2010, the free and collaborative OpenStreetMap mapping community has been growing in Haiti. Backed up by the global OSM community and using innovative tools like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), it keeps improving in order to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Participatory mapping is a powerful tool to enhance the communities' resilience facing natural disasters, but also to engage an dynamic for the local development of the territory.

The project carried by COSMHA with the support of CartONG and OSM-Fr endeavor to remain extremely concrete while at the same time rising above the issues to help objectivize decision-making. It induces change from and with the local communities.

A Guide to using Community Mapping and Participatory-GIS recently released

This guide, developed by John Forrester and Steve Cinderby from the University of York, UK, provides practical guidance aimed at lay users, community groups and students on whether community mapping and participatory geographic information systems are appropriate methods for the development issue you are investigating. The guide then talks you through the practical steps of designing, running and assessing community information collected using maps. The options, benefits and skills needed for of further analysis of the maps using PGIS are also discussed. Finally, alternative methods that could also be useful for community groups are also considered with links to other information sources.

The Guide to using Community Mapping and Participatory-GIS has been prepared as part of the Managing Borderlands project and funded by the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme of the Economic & Social and Natural Environment Research Councils

Participatory 3D Modelling (P3DM) for bottom-up decision-making in Vanuatu

In April 2013 a community consultation and a participatory planning process took place on the Island of Epi in Vanuatu. Residents assembled and populated with a rich set of data a 1:20000 scale physical 3D model of the island and its surrounding coastal waters.

This video documents how participants took ownership of the process and made informed decisions on how to address climate change challenges.

The activity has been carried out and the video produced in the framework of the GEF-UNDP-SPREP-supported Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) project.

Source: click here.

Read more:

__________ 2013. Vanuatu PACC Finalizes Project Scope on Epi Island using Participatory 3D Modelling. Newsletter No. 1, Vol 1. Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) project


The P3DM process and other cases are documented in this video collection on Vimeo and on this web site.

Guia para Experiências de Mapeamento Comunitário

As experiências de mapeamento comunitário tem sido cada vez mais utilizadas como forma de reivindicar e assegurar direitos territoriais de povos e comunidades tradicionais.

O presente Guia pretende fornecer elementos que apoie mas comunidades a produzirem seus próprios mapas. Ele contem 12 módulos, cada um com suas unidades constituintes. Os módulos cobrem uma serie de tópicos relacionados como mapeamento comunitário, tais como: antecedentes das práticas de mapeamento, considerações éticas da prática de mapeamento, métodos de mapeamento, efeitos do uso de tecnologias de informação espacial e escolha do método.

A difusão do uso do Guia propõe-se a propiciar que as comunidades tradicionais produzam a representação geográfica, a documentação e os meios de comunicação dos conhecimentos que dispõem sobre seus territórios.

Estas experiências devem desenvolver-se sob o controle das próprias comunidades, permitindo-lhes o dialogo com atores externos para a defesa e a reivindicação dos seus direitos.

Para mais informações ou para a obtenção de cópias do guia, entre em contato

Prof. Henri Acselrad
Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano e Regional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Email: henri@ippur.ufrj.br

African Court issues historic ruling protecting rights of Kenya's Ogiek Community

In a recent decision the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has ruled that the Government of Kenya should "preserve the status quo ante" the orders of eviction of Ogiek community from their ancestral lands in Kenya's Mau Forest.

This is the first time the African Court, in operation since 2006, has intervened to protect the rights of an indigenous community.

‘The Government of Kenya must now fully respect the decision of the Court, which effectively bans land transactions in the Mau Forest Complex,' says Lucy Claridge, MRG's Head of Law.   ‘The court found that, if land transactions continue, there exists a situation of extreme gravity and urgency as well as a risk of irreparable harm to the Ogiek.'

The Mau Forest, one of the main water catchment areas in Kenya, is home to an estimated 15,000 Ogiek families who claim to be indigenous owners of the land. A minority group, the Ogiek have faced, since colonial times, consistent persecution and denial of their land rights, worsening over the last two decades.

Most recently, the Ogiek have been threatened with eviction from their homes in the Eastern Mau, without due consultation, under the guise of protecting the environment. The Ogiek maintain that the forest is most at risk from large-scale logging rather than their own sustainable and traditional practices.

In 2009, frustrated by the lack of progress through national policy and judicial processes, the Ogiek - through MRG, the Ogiek Peoples' Development Programme (OPDP) and Centre for Minority Rights (CEMIRIDE) - decided to file a case with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights.

In 2012, the Commission referred the matter to the African Court, on the grounds that it evinced serious and mass human rights violations.

In its ruling, the court, based in Arusha, Tanzania, ordered the government of Kenya to halt parceling out land in the disputed forest area until the Court reaches a decision in the matter.

The African Court also ruled that the Kenyan government must refrain from taking any action which would harm the case, until it had reached a decision in the matter.  It reached this decision out of concern that the government's current actions violate the Ogiek's right to enjoyment of their cultural and traditional values, their right to property, as well as their right to economic, social and cultural development, all of which are enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. Kenya is a signatory to the Charter.

‘For many years, the Ogiek have suffered displacement or been threatened with eviction from their ancestral lands, and action is urgently needed to protect their livelihoods, and indeed their survival as an indigenous community. This ruling from the African Court is a positive step towards realization of justice for the Ogiek,' says Daniel Kobei, OPDP's Executive Director.

Adapted from: Minority Rights Group International (MRG)

Additional resources:

• The Voice of the Ogiek (video)
• OPAT Atlas (Ogiek Peoples Ancestral Territory Atlas), in Kenya” by Julius Muchemi (ERMIS Africa www.ermisafrica.org ) and Albrecht Ehrensperger (University of Bern, Switzerland www.cde.unibe.ch).
  The OPAT Atlas demonstrates the utilization and results of Participatory GIS (PGIS) (results from a mix of Aerial Photograph aided mapping, Participatory 3D Modelling (P3DM), Topographic Map sheets, GPS Survey, etc ) in recording the rights and interests of an Indigenous Peoples living in a highly degraded forest ecosystem and a highly politicized efforts to (i) accord an indigenous people their ancestral rights and interests within Mau Forest Complex, and (ii) restoring a degraded forest of local, national and international importance.
• Participatory Spatial Information Management and Communication Training Kit

Community Mapping: Finding Stories and Solutions in the Places We Live

Everywhere we go, we find challenges: waste management, poverty, health issues, corruption, drug abuse, fights. The list goes on.

But these challenges are also opportunities for us to act and bring change. In a democracy, we cannot depend on the government to solve all of our problems.

In community mapping, we venture out to different communities to discover what challenges, document their stories using digital media and photography, and explore ways to find solutions.

From July 1-11, 2013, BCMD piloted a community mapping project in Thimphu. 25 youth participated in the mapping of 5 communities: Changzamtog, Hong Kong Market, Changjiji, Motithang, and Changidaphu.

Source: YouTube