We recently shared an overview of the global launch event for Earth Defenders Toolkit which happened on July 14th. This week, we’re diving into some of the testimonies shared at the event by our partners.

On July 14, 2021, Digital Democracy along with co-hosts Alianza Ceibo, Amazon Frontlines & Oxfam hosted a global launch event for the Earth Defenders Toolkit, a collaborative space for earth defenders and their allies.  This two-hour virtual event brought together over 160 participants from around the world, the majority identifying as earth defenders, to share […]

By Caitlin Looby on 2 August 2021. Crossposted from Mongabay. The Earth Defenders Toolkit is a growing collection of apps, resources and blogs where Indigenous peoples and their allies can come together to connect and mobilize. The goals of the toolkit are to support local autonomy, allowing Indigenous communities to maintain ownership of data and reduce the […]

Sur tout le continent africain, les communautés locales travaillent ensemble pour protéger leurs forêts, savanes, déserts et côtes contre des menaces extérieures et des industries extractives. Le 21 juillet, Natural Justice, Oxfam et Digital Democracy co-organisent le Forum Afrique pour les défenseurs de la Terre, un événement virtuel de deux heures pour réunir des défenseurs […]

Partout sur la planète, les peuples autochtones et les communautés locales sont en première ligne pour protéger les forêts, les prairies et autres écosystèmes essentiels contre les menaces environnementales. Ils le font souvent au péril de leur sécurité personnelle et en dehors de tout soutien extérieur. Rejoignez-nous le 14 juillet pour célébrer le lancement de […]

Aujourd’hui est le grand lancement de la trousse à outils Earth Defenders, un espace collaboratif pour les défenseurs de la terre et leurs alliés. La trousse à outils fournit une collection croissante de ressources et de matériel de formation pour les communautés en première ligne de la lutte pour la défense des écosystèmes critiques à […]

To remedy the high learning curve that comes with understanding information technology, trainings focused on using a digital tool should be accompanied by training in basic tech literacy focused on components of this broader ecosystem in which the tool lives.

A common theme that has come out of conversations with partners about earth defender needs is figuring out where and how to get started. Many earth defender communities are aware of the emerging threats or problems within their community or their lands, but are less sure about what kind of actions to take, and rarely start directly from the point of view of wanting to make a map or conducting monitoring. Instead, it may be necessary to start thinking more broadly and to ground the conversation in something central to the lifeworld of the community: the territory.

In our research and years of accompanying partner communities in using digital technologies, we have found that mapping can be one of the most effective ways of building skills in using technology, because mapping already involves something that community members already have quite a lot of knowledge about: the territory, lands, and waters.

Because mapping projects invariably involve conversations about the land or water, they can help restart processes of knowledge transmission that have become stilted due to these influences of modernity or colonialism, and allow communities to record and archive local knowledge.