Expanding Indigenous Territorial Management through Women-Led Mapping Initiatives in Eastern Africa
- Nature Conservation
- Wildlands
- Science & Technology
- Indigenous
- Women
- Afrotropics Realm
- Daughters for Earth
| Bioregion | Victoria Basin & Albertine Rift Forests (AT12) |
| Category | Nature Conservation Our project categories represent one of three core solutions pathways to solving climate change. Energy Transition focuses on renewable energy access and energy efficiency. Nature Conservation includes wildlife habitat protection and ecosystem restoration, as well as Indigenous land rights. Regenerative Agriculture supports farmers, ranchers, and community agriculture. |
| Realm | Afrotropics The Project Marketplace is organized by the major terrestrial realms divided into 14 biogeographical regions – N. America, Subarctic America, C. America, S. America, Afrotropics, Indomalaya, Australasia, Oceania, Antarctica, and the Palearctic realm, which coincides with Eurasia and is divided into Subarctic, Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern regions. |
| Status | seed Seed indicates an early stage project that needs some level of support to develop into a larger funding proposal. Active indicates any project that needs core programmatic funding. Urgent indicates a short-term project initiated in response to a natural disaster or other impending risk. |
| Partner | Digital Democracy |
One Earth’s Project Marketplace funds on-the-ground climate solutions that are key to solving the climate crisis through three pillars of collective action — renewable energy, nature conservation, and regenerative agriculture.
In Kenya, the Ogiek People of Mount Elgon are engaged in a legal struggle to reestablish their ancestral lands taken by colonization. Inspired by Indigenous communities in the Amazon using maps in court, in 2019, the Ogiek decided to start mapping with support from Digital Democracy and Forest Peoples Programme.
Spearheaded by the Ogiek organization, the Chepkitale Indigenous People Development Project (CIPDP) and their women-led field mapping team, the community has mapped thousands of places and significant sites, covering more than 42,000 hectares of their land. Now, they want to share their extensive mapping knowledge and skills with other communities.
A Mapeo training session held in the Ogiek Community Resources Center. Image credit: Courtesy of Digital Democracy
Across the East Africa region, Indigenous frontlines communities face continuous encroachment by extraction and land invasions. In many ways, this is due to having their access and rights to land eroded as a consequence of “fortress conservation,” which has led to their eviction through the establishment of national parks and other protected areas.
Yet these communities remain stewards of their lands, which are home to unique ecosystems such as primary tropical rainforests, coastal forests, savannas, and free-standing volcanoes. In light of ongoing and emergent threats and possibilities, it is therefore critically important to empower them with the tools necessary to defend their rights.
Ogiek woman mapping trees. Image credit: Courtesy of Digital Democracy
This project is looking for seed funding to gather an inaugural group of Indigenous community mappers from across Kenya and East Africa at the Ogiek community resources center in Laboot, located along the slopes of Mount Elgon. The vision is for this capacity-building retreat to empower the CIPDP mapping team to become regional experts and leaders in mapping and to enable them to share their knowledge with proximate Indigenous communities - in line with Digital Democracy’s train-the-trainer methodologies.
Ogiek women mapping out land using Mapeo. Image credit: Courtesy of Digital Democracy
These retreats will also plant the seeds for future collaborations and cross-nation solidarity in the face of the many threats posed on Indigenous communities. Specifically, throughout this project Digital Democracy will create a peer-supported network for 12 Indigenous Land Defenders from at least six different communities or Indigenous Nations.
The project will work closely with CIPDP’s women-led field mapping team to invite community members from other Indigenous nations to gather in person at CIPDP’s community resources center. These nations may include Batwa, Sengwer, Benet, Aweer, the Ogiek of Mau Forest, the Bagungu from across Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.
Before the in-person retreats, a curriculum will be designed to optimize the invited communities’ interests and the threats they face and bring them together for a week of teaching, learning, and cross-cultural collaboration.
Women sitting in a circle talking. Image credit: Courtesy of Digital Democracy
Frontline communities like the Bagungu in Uganda have learned about the successful interventions by the Ogiek of Mount Elgon. They are eager to use mapping and monitoring tools to defend their lands. Community activists from across the East Africa region will also directly benefit from this capacity-building retreat by learning from their Ogiek peers via a bespoke curriculum that will set them up for success.
This project is aligned with a broader vision for the Ogiek community resources center at CIPDP to serve as a hub for other projects. These include several organized by the Forest Peoples Programme on the role of women in land and resource management, sustainable livelihoods, and traditional crafts. Additionally, the retreat will engender cross-community solidarity and networking, bolstering the Ogiek community resources center as a regional nexus for learning and capacity building.