Congrats to the #Yanesha people of #Peru for completing a fascinating #participatory 3D map of their communal reservation, part of the #Biosphere Reserve Oxapampa Ashaninka. Supported by @IUCN & @iapad, the #P3DM exercise helped documenting & reviving #traditional #knowledge pic.twitter.com/uXd0rkMtFk

— Hindou (@hindououmar) May 19, 2023

How mapping changed behaviour

A study of the Samoan experience of participatory three-dimensional modelling (P3DM), a practice which has been widely promoted by CTA, has shown that it has led to better natural resource management, helped local communities become more resilient to climate change and brought about significant changes in the relationship between governments and local communities.

P3DM is a mapping progress which enables local communities to ‘populate’ geo-referenced relief models with their own knowledge about physical features, such as rivers and villages, and the way in which their territory is used, for example for hunting, fishing and growing crops. The maps help to enhance a sense of belonging and local knowledge and many communities have used them to assert their rights, identify resources and opportunities, and devise new strategies for managing the land.

Giacomo Rambaldi, who has led CTA’s work on P3DM, was contacted in 2016 by Barbara Dovarch, a PhD candidate from the University of Sassari, Italy. She was keen to look at the effectiveness of P3DM and Rambaldi suggested she carry out her fieldwork in Samoa. Here, a 5-year project funded by the Global Environment Facility and carried out by the Samoan Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, had used P3DM to sensitise local communities to climate change. Rather than being initiated by the local communities and their partners, as normally happens, P3DM was introduced by a government department as a way to reach communities and gain their trust.

Dovarch found that prior to the introduction of P3DM, community representatives tended to adopt a very passive attitude during consultations with the authorities. “Government officials usually adopted a lecturing style in meetings with community members, using PowerPoint presentations and information leaflets, often without success,” noted Dovarch in her report. However, the P3DM process provided local communities with the opportunity to express their own understanding about their land and take a more active role in resource management. The building of the models also enabled young and old people to talk to one another and exchange knowledge about nature, culture and history.

According to community members who spoke to Dovarch, the process encouraged the government to change the way it behaved towards local people. Now it is much more willing to ‘listen’ rather than ‘teach’. Government officials moved away from ‘consultations’ towards active participation, which helped to build trust on both sides. As far as the government officials were concerned, the P3DM process – in Dovarch’s words – “completely changed the attitude and approach of communities towards their own environment and land management.”

The government of Samoa was initially exposed to P3DM techniques through CTA’s ICT4Ag activities. Since then, it has not only contributed to the development of 19 P3DM models over a 4-year period, but also committed itself to playing an important role in popularising the technique in other parts of the Pacific region, beginning with Tonga. Dovarch described her findings in a CTA working paper in the ICTs for agriculture series, Participatory 3D modelling in Samoa: Triggering behavioural changes in climate change resilience.

Life on the move - Pastoral life and livestock cross-border trade in Northern Uganda through the lens of participatory mapping

Cross-border livestock trade in dryland eastern Africa significantly contributes to the enhancement of food security and generation of wealth. It supports the livelihoods of a wide range of actors including pastoralists, livestock traders and processors.

In this context the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) with finalcial and technical support provided by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), organised a P3DM workshop to identify key spatial characteristics of the livestock trading routes and marketing practices and bring the different stakeholders (including local authorities) around the same table, share information, discuss challenges and envisage mutually beneficial solutions.

The participatory mapping activity took place in Amudat in August 2016 and focused on the Achorichori Micro-catchment in Karamoja which includes Achorichor, Loroo, Amudat and Moruita Parishes. The area falls within the belt of livestock migratory movement, farmlands, cross-border livestock trade, grazing lands and water points. The mapped area covers approximately 546 sq. km.

The mapping exercise helped identify and locate wet and dry season grazing areas, farmland, forests and patchy pastures. Point items include schools, functional and non-functional boreholes, heath facilities, market places, maize mills, police posts but also churches, shrines and small gardens. Community representatives located on the 3D map all features they consider as important to the ir livelihoods. Their feedback about the mapping process are captured in the film.

Other participating organisations included:

ERMIS Africa, Kenya (P3DM facilitation)
ESIPPS International, Uganda (GIS support)
Vision Care Foundation (VCF), Uganda (community mobilizing)

French version of the film:

Participatory 3D Modeling exercise with pastoralist communities in Karamoja, Uganda

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in partnership with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), ERMIS Africa, ESIPPS International Ltd and Vision Care Foundation (VCF) supported the implementation of a ‪Participatory‬ 3D Modelling (‪P3DM‬) exercise in Northern ‪Uganda‬, within the ‪‎Karamoja‬ Cluster.

The process took place in the framework of the larger CTA-funded “Building resilient Pastoral Communities through Cross-border Livestock Value Chains in the IGAD region” project.

The P3DM exercise, and specifically its training component benefits also from support provided by the UNDP Equator Initiative which sponsored the participation of the director of the Oromia Pastoralist Association (OPA).

Other organisations which attended the process for capacity building purposes included Communication without borders (CwB), SIKOM PeaceNet Development and delegates from the Endorois and Kayas peoples from Kenya.

Those interested in the process can see a series of pictures on @PGISatCTA Twitter account.

All tweets related to the event include the hashtag ‪#‎p3dmUG‬ 

More importantly CTA commissioned the production of a documentary related to the process which will be available on www.vimeo.com/channels/pgis

Participatory 3D Modeling exercise with pastoralist communities in Karamoja, Uganda - Start following now!

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in partnership with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), ERMIS Africa, ESIPPS International Ltd and Vision Care Foundation (VCF) is supporting the implementation of a ‪Participatory‬ 3D Modelling (‪P3DM‬) exercise in Northern ‪Uganda‬, within the ‪‎Karamoja‬ Cluster.

Karamoja Village, Northern Uganda (CC credit: Swiss Frog, Flickr)

The process takes place in the framework of the larger CTA-funded “Building resilient Pastoral Communities through Cross-border Livestock Value Chains in the IGAD region” project.

The P3DM exercise, and specifically its training component benefits also from support provided by the UNDP Equator Initiative which has sponsored the participation of the director of the Oromia Pastoralist Association (OPA).

Other organisations attending the process for capacity building purposes include Communication without borders (CwB), SIKOM PeaceNet Development and delegates from the Endorois and Kayas peoples from Kenya.

Those interested in the process should follow the @PGISatCTA Twitter account for daily updates.

All tweets related to the event will include the hashtag ‪#‎p3dmUG‬ 

More importantly CTA commissioned the production of a documentary related to the process which will be available on www.vimeo.com/channels/pgis

IWD2016 - Celebrating women: A champion for the rights of indigenous people

An encounter with an innovative technique known as participatory three-dimensional modelling was to prove a turning point in the life of a young tribeswoman from rural Chad. She now travels the globe to advocate for the rights of her own and other indigenous communities, and to press for their voice to be heard in negotiations about climate change, on which their futures depend.

Growing up as part of the M'bororo people – traditional semi-nomadic and nomadic herders living in Chad and neighbouring countries – nothing could have prepared Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim for the turn her life would take once she was introduced to participatory mapping. At the time, she was a young woman, working to gain recognition of her people's rights, and especially for access to the natural resources that are critical to their livelihoods.

Participatory three-dimensional modelling (P3DM), or participatory mapping, brings together traditional knowledge from local communities about their landscapes and ecosystems with data on physical features, such as land elevation and sea depth. The result is a scaled and geo-referenced three-dimensional (3D) model, which can be a powerful tool for knowledge building and communication, as well as for gaining recognition of local communities' rights to be involved in decision-making that affects their natural resources.

Hindou's introduction to P3DM came through the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), a network of 150 indigenous peoples' organisations in 20 African countries. IPACC had been introduced to participatory mapping by CTA's P3DM expert, Giacomo Rambaldi, and supported in its use as a tool for gathering evidence for indigenous peoples' arguments in national and international negotiations.

A bitter conflict

Encouraged to learn about the practice through a P3DM exercise in Gabon, Hindou spent two weeks living with local pygmies and helping them to build a participatory 3D map of their jungle landscape. The pygmies had lost some of their hunting and fishing rights when a national park was created, and the mapping exercise succeeded in its goal of convincing the government that these indigenous people had a right to be consulted about decisions affecting their homeland.

Hindou was hooked.



"It was a long way away from my own community and very different, but I found the exercise exciting and interesting," said Hindou, who is Director of the Association des Femmes Peules Autochtones du Tchad (AFPAT) and IPACC's Executive Committee representative for the Congo Basin region. "It was the first time I had seen all the intergenerational people mobilised – women, youths, men and elders. I realised that if we did this in my own community, it could help resolve a great many issues."

That chance came in 2012, when, with CTA support, a mapping exercise involving Hindou's own M'bororo people was organised in the southern district of Baïbokoum, the scene of conflicts between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. Increasing scarcity of natural resources, especially water reserves, was being exacerbated by climate change and population growth, and the bitter contention between the two groups was threatening to spiral out of control.

Hindou was closely involved in the P3DM event, organising the workshop that preceded it, which brought together herders, scientists, UNESCO and World Meteorological Organization representatives as well as government officials for the first time. Once again, participatory mapping proved to be a winning approach. The model-making process enabled all players to have an overview of the contested area, highlighting where the farmers had barred the routes used by herders to take their cattle to water and identifying a range of solutions that would be acceptable to all.

The mapping exercise showed that indigenous peoples could play an effective role in decision-making, from which they had always been excluded in the past. And it gave a new sense of self-confidence to all members of the community, especially women.

"We took the opportunity to increase the capacity of women to express themselves, showing men that the women had a voice and that their opinions were sometimes more valuable than those of men – and the men accepted this," said Hindou. "As a result, women had a greater say in community affairs."

Powerful traditional knowledge

At a personal level, the mapping exercise also proved an eye opener for Hindou herself.

"The impact on me was huge. This was my community, so I knew all the traditional knowledge, but it helped me to understand things that didn't belong to my own generation," she recalls. "It changed my life forever."

Hindou now uses P3DM in all her work, to illustrate the importance of conserving traditional knowledge, how to marry it with scientific knowledge and using both to combat climate change and protect the environment.

Although her roots are still firmly anchored in her community, Hindou has become used to travelling the world to make presentations and put the indigenous people's case to high-ranking officials in climate-change negotiations. For the past 10 years, she has been a regular participant at meetings of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She is Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), which represents the interests of indigenous peoples throughout the world and presents these at COP negotiations.

"Climate change is a massive problem for indigenous people because we depend on the environment. For any indigenous people, from any corner of the world, livelihoods are linked to natural resources, for our food and medicine, for everything, so if there are floods or droughts the impact is greater for us," she said. "Of course, it is highly unusual for someone of my background to be travelling the world and speaking at conferences and negotiating. But for me, it is important to change the life of my community. I know my people are proud of what I am doing and I can never give up my work. I want to help my community to adapt to climate change, and you cannot talk about climate change without talking about the rights of indigenous people."

Reposted from Spore with permission.

Drones and Aerial Observation : New Technologies for Property Rights, Human Rights, and Global Development

Gregor Maclennan from Digital Democracy talks about the use of UAVs used in the context of indigenous land rights in Guyana.

More information on New America

Release announcement: Langscape: Vol. 4:1, Summer 2015, The People's Issue - Part One: Flows and Bridges

Terralingua's magazine Langscape is a unique voice for biocultural diversity—the interlinked diversity of life in nature and culture. It aims to bring biocultural diversity to the general public through thought pieces, reports from the field, personal accounts, stories, photo essays, and artwork.

This issue focuses on a theme of “Flows and Bridges”. Flows: the flow of life in nature and culture, in space and time; the flow of water; the flow of memory; the flow of communication and understanding across cultures; the flow of art, dance, and beauty. And Bridges: bridges across often troubled waters, linking traditional and scientific knowledge, traditional solutions and contemporary innovations, traditional informal education and western formal education, local situations and global awareness and action; bridges of solidarity among individuals and communities; bridges over our gaps in knowledge and understanding, opening new paths and new hopes for sustaining the biocultural diversity of life.

You can view the Editorial and the Table of Contents  on the Langscape website, where you can also find out how to receive the magazine as well as access web-only content.

Identities and mapping processes

Giacomo Rambaldi, CTA Senior Programme Coordinator, talks about the impact of participatory 3D mapping processes among rural communities. At CTA, Giacomo coordinates Web 2.0 and social media capacity building, and Participatory GIS (PGIS) initiatives.

Soure: Agritools project

Participatory mapping used to monitor illegal logging by the Baka in their ancestral forests

The Baka indigenous people in the forests of the Congo Basin have been using PDAs (personal digital assistants) with built-in global positioning systems (GPS) to collect data (such as sites of illegal logging and felled trees and forest sites of livelihood and cultural importance) in their ancestral forests. They then use this information to make interactive maps of their ancestral forests, to help lobby against illegal logging of the forest. These maps and the data collected can then be used by Cameroon's Ministry of Forests in the fight against illegal logging.

This video was produced by OKANI in April 2011.

Source: FPP

Speaking of Home - The Story of the Mount Elgon Ogiek Peoples

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 mapping workshop.

Through developing a 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

Community Mapping of Cultural Heritage in the Solomon Islands

In the Solomon Islands, a place of rich cultural heritage, there are many threats to historical cultural sites including logging, climate change and sea-level rise. Solomon Island local community members joined a training workshop in 2011 run by Professor Richard Walter of The University of Otago (New Zealand), and learned the skills required to recognise, identify and map out and document their cultural heritage to preserve these special places for the future.

ICTs for Climate Change Adaptation: Introduction of innovative technologies in the Caribbean

Starting at the end of this week Tobago will host a very interesting event. Close to 200 residents of the island will come together in a two-week workshop to build a physical three-dimensional model of Tobago.  The process will contribute to formulating responses and develop action plans addressing the impacts of climate change and extreme climatic events.

The 3D model will cover a total area of 1,188 sq km at a 1:10,000 scale.  Once completed, the model will display a wide range of terrestrial and marine features and landmarks which will help communities articulate their concerns, needs and aspirations in terms of development and disaster risk reduction.  In the process, facilitators will use methods known as Participatory 3D Modelling (P3DM) and Participatory Video (PV) which will help in documenting and adding value to the input of local and traditional knowledge from communities.

The workshop will take place at the Blenheim Sheep Multiplication & Research Center in Tobago (29 September - 11 October, 2011). 

View Participatory 3D Modelling Workshop in Tobago in a larger map

The activities will culminate in the presentation of an impressive relief model (measuring 4.9 m x 2.4 m) and a participatory video by representatives of the local communities and project facilitators at a handing over ceremony which will take place on Friday 12th October 2012 at the auditorium of the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute - Tobago campus (by invitation only).

P3DM of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Photo credit: J. Hardcastle

The project will pilot, for the first time in the region, the use of P3DM. P3DM is a participatory mapping method that can be used across the Caribbean islands to facilitate effective participation by local communities and other stakeholders in the identification of general policy priorities, as well as specific policies and actions needed on the ground at the landscape and site level to address land management issues, including the impacts of climate change and extreme climatic events.  This method will allow inclusion of relevant local and traditional knowledge, increase capacity, facilitate coordination and collaboration across sectors, and build buy-in for implementation of plans for resilience to climate change and extreme climatic events.

Twenty-two trainees from the region (including five from Tobago) will be trained to facilitate P3DM and PV processes in this project, and nearly fifty observers from the region will visit during the construction of the model.

The process is facilitated by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), the University of the West Indies (UWI), the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), Division of Agriculture, Marine Affairs, Marketing and the Environment (DAME) and the Partners with Melanesians (PwM). Funding and expertise is provided by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) and the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP).

In the forthcoming months CTA will support capacity building in the domain of Web 2.0 and social media. In the forthcoming months, CTA will support capacity building in the domain of Web 2.0 and social media.  In addition, CANARI has secured funding from the Federal Republic of Germany to facilitate the production of a civil society agenda addressing climate change issues in the island as a follow-up activity to this project.

If you are interested in having a look at "work in progress" please contact Mrs. Neila Bobb-Prescott (e-mail: neila@canari.org; phone: 001-868-789-9917 or 001-868-302-3739 to get more information.

Participatory 3D Modelling (P3DM): five years after receiving the World Summit Award

In collaboration with national and regional partner organisations, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation EU-ACP (CTA) is supporting the dissemination and adoption of P3DM practice in ACP countries. The practice is now well established in Africa and the Pacific. Its introduction to the Caribbean  is planned for October 2012 via a partnership with CANARI and the University of the West Indies.

Since 2007 WSA award winning Participatory 3D Modelling P3DM (P3DM) in Fiji, the P3DM practice has been adopted in many parts of the world including Australia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, East Timor, Ecuador, Ethiopia, France, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, India, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Thailand, Vietnam, and many other countries.

In Kenya, Indigenous Peoples employed the practice to document their biophysical and cultural landscapes, enhance inter-generational knowledge exchange.  They also found it to add value and authority to local knowledge, improve communication with mainstream society, improve spatial planning and address territorial disputes.




In Ethiopia P3DM has been taken up by farmers to plan out community-based land reclamation and sustainable management of resources.



The Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC), a pan-African network, has been spearheading the adoption of P3DM in the continent to improve awareness at policy-making level on the relevance of location-specific knowledge in climate change adaptation processes. As an example, the use of P3DM by pygmies in Gabon allowed them to gain visibility and establish peer-to-peer exchanges with local government institutions.



In 2012 Pastoralist Mbororo People in Chad practiced P3DM to manage spatial conflicts with farming communities.

In Solomon Islands coastal communities benefitted from P3DM to analyse issues related to climate change and identified ways to adapt to it.


UNESCO, IFAD and other development agencies have created resource materials (publications) making specific reference to the method.

In collaboration with IFAD, CTA has developed a training kit http://pgis-tk.cta.int supporting the spread of good practice in generating, managing, analysing and communicating spatial information. The kit includes a module on P3DM.

Combining Traditional Knowledge and Technology for Community led Climate Change Adaptation

21 May 2012, HONIARA. Pacific Islanders will now have a greater voice in climate change decision making and a more direct input in adapting their communities to climate change using a combination of traditional knowledge and technology. This will be made possible through the week-long awareness raising and planning workshop on Participatory Mapping and Community Empowerment for Climate Change Policy Making that started in Honiara today.

Organised jointly by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Partners With Melanesians (PwM), the workshop aims to promote the adoption of innovative Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and approaches to help address development challenges.

Around 80 participants, including community leaders, representatives from non government organisations (NGOs), community based organisations, regional, national and local bodies as well as researchers and technical experts will attend the workshop at the Kitano Mendana Hotel in Honiara.

Participatory three-dimensional modeling (P3DM) is a community based mapping method that used local knowledge with scientific data like the elevation of the land and depth of the sea to produce stand-alone, scaled and geo-referenced relief models.

This method, integrated with more sophisticated tools can enhance resilience to climate change by adding value to traditional knowledge and promoting its integration in adaptation planning and advocacy processes.

“The combination of traditional and scientific knowledge not only allows farmers and fishers in Small Island Developing States to have voice in climate change decision-making but can also ensure the implementation of more effective adaptation strategies,” said Giacomo Rambaldi, Senior Programme Coordinator of CTA.

During the workshop, expert presenters and facilitators working in the region will share case studies and lessons learned and discuss the benefits, challenges, and ethical considerations involved in the process. Representatives from Mboemboe village in Choiseul Province (who have already been through the process of manufacturing a coastal P3DM and used it for planning purposes),  will share their experience at the workshop.

Local community members from Honiara will be engaged in the construction of a mini-model. While students will take care of the physical construction, elders will populate the model with spatial data drawn from memory. Participants in the main session will be given the opportunity to interface with the parallel session and get a hands-on experience of P3DM.

The workshop concludes on 26th May.

More information on the event are available here.

An initiative supported by:

The Sacred Natural Sites Initiative launches its new website

Emerging out of 13 years of work of the IUCN Specialist Group on the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas, the Sacred Natural Sites Initiative builds an alliance of custodians, traditional knowledge holders, conservationists, academics and others in support of the conservation and revitalization of sacred natural sites and territories. The initiative is guided by custodians and advisors from different professions and walks of life. As a basis for guiding its development, they make use of a preliminary action plan.

Leading up to the action plan was the development of the IUCN UNESCO Sacred Natural Sites – Guidelines for Protected Area Managers and the book Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Nature and Culture, edited by Bas Verschuuren, Robert Wild, Jeffrey McNeely and Gonzalo Oviedo and launched at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2010.

Feedback from a Participatory 3D Modelling exercise representing the Abongo-Mitsogho cultural landscape of the Ikobey Commune and Waka National Park

As part of a region-wide effort aimed at involving local communities in the sustainable management of natural resources in the Congo Basin and at adding value and authority to local and indigenous knowledge and values and at ensuring equitable benefit sharing resulting from co-managed protected areas, the Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN), Brainforest, CTA, IPACC, MINAPYGA, Rainforest Foundation UK, and the Wildlife Conservation Society-Gabon (WCS) supported a series of initiatives in the area including the participatory 3D modelling exercise described in this report.


While responding to needs expressed by local communities and by the park administration, the exercise offered the opportunity for training delegates from national and regional organisations based in Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Download the full report of the activity: English | Français

Chorotegas: Dignidad Indígena

El Pueblo Indígena Chorotega del norte de Nicaragua, reclama sus derechos a las tierras ancestrales y reivindican su cultura

Landscape, Process and Power: Re-evaluating Traditional Environmental Knowledge

Landscape, Process and Power (now available in paperback edition)“…presents an excellent overview of the study of traditional environmental knowledge (TEK)and the directions in which it has evolved in recent years…Individually but especially together, the contributors of this volume do a fine job at providing a contextualized and fluid understanding of TEK…I have no hesitation in recommending this volume not only to anyone wishing to catch up on recent developments in TEK research, but also as a useful teaching resource in a range of anthropology courses.”  JRAI

“This volume succeeds in its purpose to dislodge enduring western notions of TEK [traditional environmental knowledge] as static and to firmly center it within an analytical framework of landscape, process, and power…The critical perspectives of the authors of this book would prompt lively discussion in the classroom, and the books grounding in ethnographic detail and applications are of interest to both research academics and practitioners.”  Ethnobiology Letters

In recent years, the field of study variously called local, indigenous or traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) has experienced a crisis brought about by the questioning of some of its basic assumptions. This has included reassessing notions that scientific methods can accurately elicit and describe TEK or that incorporating it into development projects will improve the physical, social or economic well-being of marginalized peoples. The contributors to this volume argue that to accurately and appropriately describe TEK, the historical and political forces that have shaped it, as well as people’s day-to-day engagement with the landscape around them must be taken into account. TEK thus emerges, not as an easily translatable tool for development experts, but as a rich and complex element of contemporary lives that should be defined and managed by indigenous and local peoples themselves.

Serena Heckler received her Ph.D. in ethnobotany, environmental anthropology and sustainable development from Cornell University and is a research fellow at Durham University. She has lived and worked with the Wõthihã of the Venezuelan Amazon, studying the ways in which the market economy and demographic change have affected their environmental knowledge. She is currently undertaking participatory research on similar themes with the Shuar of Ecuador, in collaboration with the Intercultural University of Indigenous Peoples and Nations-Amawtay Wasi based in Quito, Ecuador.

The Voice of the Ogiek (video)

In 2006 a little known ethnic group – called the Ogiek - created a three-dimensional map of their ancestral land in Kenya. In the past members of this indigenous community were regarded as second class citizen. Today, their story has gained international recognition. The Kenyan government is increasingly listening to their voice and including them in a dialogue over the future of their community and of the Mau Forest.

This is the story of how the Ogiek found their voice …

For more information on the case visit: http://goo.gl/H5drF