Ecopolitical Mapping: A Multispecies Research Methodology for Environmental Communication

<jats:p>Ecopolitical Mapping is a methodology which seeks to map encounters of love and disaster between humans and their more-than-human surroundings. This methodology, first coined by an transdisciplinary group of artists and researchers in South Chile, unfolds through collective mapping sessions using an ecopolitical approach to trace the power relationships between different species-beings. In this research document, we unpack our engagements with this methodology in three different scales and territories: the Biobío Watershed (Chile), Berlin City (Germany) and Europe (Continent). Each case presented a strong environmental communication component, which ended up with the translation of the stories of the encounters into illustrated maps. The methodological approach proposed here is intimate, political and situated. The map evolves from a supposed politically neutral artifact into a tool for environmental education, communication, and activism. We offer the notionand approach, hoping that this methodology can be practiced and refined by other humans, allies of the tentacle kinship.</jats:p>

section_content: "Nobody lives everywhere, everybody lives somewhere" (Haraway, 2016: 31). 

Humans are surrounded by and made up through other beings: plants, animals, fungi, and microscopic viruses and bacteria. All these denizens carry histories of encounters, mutual contamination between species that can be narrated and visualized (Tsing, 2015). This ecological web of life has moved into the anthropocene, a historical epoch where human influence on our nonhuman surroundings has increased thoroughly if not critically (Moore, 2015). In this context, multispecies encounters are rapidly converting into losses and extinctions. Whole ecosystems are threatened by disappearance in what is being called the "sixth mass extinction" (Pievani, 2014). Ongoing habitat loss, fragmentation resulting from deforestation, pollution, and unsustainable land use have drastically altered the ecology of the world to an alarming state (Maron, Simmonds & Watson, 2018; WWF, 2018). 

To raise public awareness and increase understanding of the ecological crisis we are living in, it is of utmost importance to imagine and develop effective environmental communication strategies (Schwarze, 2007; Okaka, 2016). More specifically, environmental communication needs to focus on reaching a broader audience. It is important to shift strategies to change behaviours that are contributing to the degradation of certain ecological systems with compelling visual media playing a key role (De Young, 2000). Besides top-down interventions, a strong bottom-up movement and collective understanding are necessary to engage with environmental issues in an inclusive and intersectional manner. Then, not only will widely visible environmental issues be addressed, but underlying structures and social processes will also be engaged (Bennet et al., 2017). 

As an approach to environmental communication, this paper proposes Ecopolitical Mapping as a way to creatively communicate environmental issues and challenges in more productive ways. Ecopolitical Mapping is a novel creative research methodology, which uses collective mapping to understand power relations between humans and nonhumans. Using a multispecies approach to our mapping, we understand non-humans beings as equally important terrestrial and social co-inhabitants, rather than as mere resources for the development of human activities (van Dooren, Kirksey & Münster, 2016). Through drawing on maps, culturally constructed perceptions and experiences are captured and can be used as a starting point for conversation and discussion (Ares & Risler, 2016). Rather than distance our own methodology proposal from the traditional collective mapping, we consider it as a continuation, a way of furthering these methodologies and open new explorations in fields such as political ecology and multispecies studies. 

The methodology of Ecopolitical Mapping has so far been implemented in three separate projects. The collection of projects is diverse in their geographical extensions and cultural backgrounds: Cartografías de las costas del Biobío (South Chile), Multispecies Resistance: A Cartography of Love and Disaster (Europe), and Wildnisstadt Berlin (Germany). The final products reflect tensions between thriving and threatened ecologies. They serve as communication tools and trigger discussions about the contrast between human impact in different regions in the world and opportunities for nature conservation. This research document reflects on three applications of our Ecopolitical Mapping method and offers guidance for future iterations of this methodological approach.
section_name: Introduction

section_content: Previous collective mapping projects have mainly centered around urban planning (Safiullin et al., 2015) and conservation management (Casti, 2014). These projects often adopt an utilitarian point of view in regards to other-than-humans. Historically, western society has comprehended other species as objects, to the point of considering them mere landscape elements, passive and not reactive agents (Latour, 2018). Following indigenous traditions, and a sentient ecology conceptual framework, we understand multispecies relations as social relations (Anderson, 2000). Birds, insects, and rivers stop being perceived as objects and are converted into social beings: from objects to subjects, from landscapes to encounters (Tsing, 2015). Ecopolitical Mapping is, then, a methodology that enables the translation of those stories into images, as a way to briefly visualize the infinite encounters happening everywhere on this planet. 

The methodological adaptation of collective mapping was first developed and applied in Chile. During 2017, in the city of Concepción, an interdisciplinary group of activists came together to use social cartography to communicate environmental issues happening in their dwelling places. Their intentions focused specifically on mapping biodiversity and human impacts in the Biobio Region near the city of Concepción. After conducting several mapping sessions, they collaborated with artists to transform the mapping sessions into an illustrative map. This interpretive map was later used as an environmental educational tool for NGOs and in High Schools in the region. 

Two years later, we decided to build on these experiences and use similar concepts and methods in Europe. Inspired by love and care for non-humans dwelling in Europe, we began the process to create an illustrative map for broader environmental education at a larger scale. This is how Multispecies Resistance: A Cartography of Love and Disaster was born; a mapping project which aims to raise awareness about the diversity of non-human inhabitants living in Europe. While the general approach is similar to the Biobío case, the European project is novel in regards to the diversity of participants involved and the continental scale of the map. 

Shortly after finishing the Multispecies Resistance mapping process, we decided to apply our method to a more specific location, reducing the scale and focusing on urban settlement multispecies interactions. This is how the Berlin Wildnisstadt mapping project began; which aims to unfold the rich biodiversity of Germany's capital city. Simultaneously, the project joins forces with the Berlin National Park City campaign, as a way to communicate the importance of recognizing the existence of non-human neighbours in the city (Wildnisstadt Berlin, 2021).
section_name: Context: Three ecopolitical mapping cases

section_content: The methodology of Ecopolitical Mapping is divided into four stages: (1) mapping sessions, (2) data analysis, (3) map creation and (4) environmental communication. While the stages can be approached as separate activities, they are interlinked as the activities build upon each other and develop through the process of communication and mapping. In what follows, we will offer an outline of the four stages.
section_name: Methodology: Ecopolitical mapping as a tool for environmental communication

section_content: Gathered around a canvas, in which only the main geographical features of the area to be mapped are shown to provide geographical context -but is otherwise blank-, a group of participants and informants is asked to draw eco-political relations and processes on the map (Robbins, 2011). Mapping sessions can be organized in person, by physically gathering people around a table, or online, with cooperative tools such as Mural (www. mural. co). 

Participants are guided in the mapping process, by asking them to draw geographical structures such as rivers, lakes, mountains and coasts. They are also asked to draw non-humans inhabitants such as charismatic, endangered or endemic species. 

Finally, they are asked to mark the positive and negative anthropic influences on the environment. 

Depending on the size of the mapped area and the number of key informants which need to be engaged, a number of workshop sessions can be organized. Online workshops are particularly suitable when larger areas need to be mapped, as they allow collaboration across nations and geographical barriers to in-person meetings.
section_name: Mapping Sessions

section_content: After concluding the mapping workshops, the collected data needs to be further analyzed by the leading team. As a first step, the maps are collated into one new map which merges all existing information. In parallel, the accuracy of collected information can be assessed. For this step, external experts can be involved, which could check and assess whether the representation was geographically accurate, and the represented species and processes correctly named and represented. At this stage, the aim is to find a balance between scientific narratives and participants' stories, perceptions and traditional ecological knowledge (Huntington, 1998).
section_name: Data Analysis

section_content: During map creation, collaboration with an illustrator becomes key. The raw map becomes a collated map, which is used as a basis for what will become the final illustrated map. Given that Ecopolitical Mapping has mainly an environmental communication scope, in this stage a compromise between map accuracy and graphical representation needs to be made, with a bigger focus on the latter. It also becomes necessary to further reduce the mapped elements, to ensure that the final drawn map is easily readable and graphically appealing.
section_name: Map creation

section_content: Environmental communication occurs throughout the whole process. During Ecopolitical Mapping, a social space is created where people can think and learn jointly to capture the complexity of a problem. Through participation people with diverse backgrounds, i. e. citizens, activists, artists and scientists, come together and exchange their situated knowledge (Krueger et al., 2016; Pohl, 2011; Hedesan & Tendler, 2017). In doing so, the social learning practice enables co-producing knowledge, involving moments of emerging values, which strive for a more complex picture when tackling prevailing value-laden problems such as biodiversity loss (Sharman & Mlambo, 2012; Stengers, 2018). The interim results are presented through digital articles and at conferences and workshops, in order to share with a broader audience about the Ecopolitical Mapping process and engage new participants in further workshops. Finally, the illustrated map serves by itself as a communication tool, and can be further used in environmental communication efforts such as for activities in schools, festivals, or workshops.
section_name: Environmental communication

section_content: We now present three case studies where the Ecopolitical Mapping method has been implemented. The scales, numbers of sessions and number of participants involved in each case are different, but all of the cases follow the previously proposed stages to fulfil the project's aims. Our main focus relies on the Multispecies Resistance experience, because we had the opportunity to thoroughly document the whole process and critically reflect on our own methodologies.
section_name: Case studies

section_content: Ecopolitical Mapping was first coined in South Chile by a transdisciplinary team of activists, including some of the authors of this article. The methodology was intended to be an instrument of an environmental communication project to raise awareness of the degradation of local ecosystems in the Biobío region. This area lies within a conservation hotspot, and nevertheless is labeled as a sacrifice zone because of its deeply degraded natural environment (Bullard, 2011). 

The transdisciplinary group of activists, composed of scientists, artists and environmental educators, came together to make a tool for environmental education and communication of the human threats and for addressing the shifting inequalities between humans and other species. Through the blending of an ecopolitical lens and a multispecies perspective, the team aimed to unveil the complexity and multiplicity of social interactions beyond human societies. Ecopolitical Mapping was born to extend the cartography process to the more-than-human world (Abram, 1996). Through a multispecies approach, the more-than-human relationships within the region can be mapped, allowing to display the multitude of organisms, their entangled relationships, and how they shape the territory (Kirkse and Helmreich, 2010). 

The team conducted two sessions, with local environmental activists, outdoors enthusiasts, and young naturalists, who talked about threatened native species, charismatic species and their symbolic importance for locals (Fig. 1a ). They discussed the traditional names of general geographical features: toponymies for hills, bays, lakes and beaches. They also collected folklore stories during the sessions, related to human and other beings' encounters (Fig. 2a ). The surface of the mapped area was approximately 24,000 km 2. After this, the resulting maps were collated into a draft map by the team, which was used by artist Cristian Toro (www. estudiotoro. cl), to create a final illustration showing the political ecology of the Biobío coastal area (Fig. 1b ). Hence the name: Cartography of Biobío's Coast (see Appendix for final illustration). 

The innovation in this approach was the politically situated composition of a map, to trace and visualize not only the marvelous biodiversity that surrounds us, but the power structures underlying the relationship between humans and other earthly denizens. Thus, fauna, flora, funga, bacteria, viruses, and even whole ecosystems like rivers, forests and mountains pass from objects to subjects. This perspective is also called "sentient ecology". This idea extends the concept of personhood to animals, and ultimately to all ecological life (Anderson, 2000). And so, the idea of the "other" (previously assigned to non-Westerners) is relocated to the non-human. This approach explores this new otherness and its long history of co-domestications, alliances and murders across landscapes and more-than-human territories. This was an intentionally biased research in which the team used mapping as an act of radical care. By recognizing the intimate relationships of care for nonhuman beings, the participants began to "manifest new ways of knowing [nonhuman] species -outside of and beyond logics of commodification, instrumentalization, exploitation, and eradication" (Gillespie & Narayanan, 2020). As such, they reconfigured the kinds of knowledge about this particular territory through a local perspective of care, in both the visual mapping process and the final outcome. With this intention, the illustrated map was then used in environmental education workshops in the Biobío Region (Fig. 2b ). At this point, participants continued exploring the incidence of the application of the cartographic image as a tool for ecopolitical subjectivation. Those who initially participated in the activity could share certain territorial, experiential and technical notions from their own disciplines. The development of a graphic piece allowed them to transform stories of encounters into graphic images on a map. From this cartographic reading, the group dialogue process was translated into an information design, where certain elements that determine the morphology of the territory are highlighted in contrast to the impact of the local extractivist industry. Thus, the map was not offered as the sum of coordinates or landmarks, but as layers that can be worked on graphically in order to facilitate the interpretation of the information and make it more attractive.
section_name: Case Study 1: Cartografía de las costas del Biobío

section_content: For the Multispecies Resistance project, the leading research team conducted the Ecopolitical Mapping process through a number of activities. Three collective mapping workshops were organized: two in-presence at the Prinzessinengärten in Berlin (Fig. 3 ) on 20-21st of August 2021, and one conducted online on the 15th of September of the same year (Fig. 4 ). 

In these collective mapping workshops, the leading team gathered together a group of key informants such as activists, scientists, students and other nature enthusiasts. Then, they asked the participants to draw their perceptions about nature, and the interplay between human and nature on a map of Europe. The map was prepared on the software ArcGIS, illustrating the main geographical features of the continent, but otherwise offering a blank canvas for the collective mapping process (Fig. 5a ). For the in-presence workshops, the map was printed on a A0-size sheet, and layed out on a table, around which the participants gathered to draw. A total of 10 to 15 participants were invited to the presence workshops, and divided in two groups, gathering around two tables and standing. After an initial introduction, the team invited the participants to introduce themselves, and to draw their home ecosystem and their favourite species on the map. These introductory questions allowed them to familiarize themselves with the procedure. Afterwards, participants were instructed to draw directly on the map. Acting as facilitators of the workshops, the leading team used questions on biodiversity, geography and human impact to drive the mapping procedure, and welcomed the participants to share the stories of the items they were drawing on the map. This was done to facilitate knowledge exchange and start discussions around nature and its state in Europe, as well as the interplay between humans and its non-human neighbors. The mapping session lasted an hour, with a short break in between. The session concluded by sharing the results, and having a group discussion around the final drawn maps. 

A total of 36 participants joined the Ecopolitical Mapping workshops. The backgrounds of the participants varied, ranging from ecology to arts and design. Participants were students, NGO workers and researchers. A total of 7 maps were drawn, which were then collated into one final map. An extract of it can be seen in Fig. 4. 

The online workshop had a similar structure. The participants gathered on the video-communication platform Zoom (www. zoom. us). After a brief introduction, participants were divided into three smaller groups in breakout rooms, accompanied by one facilitator each. The team used the tool MURAL (www. mural. co) for the mapping session. The tool allows the setting of a canvas, on which the map of Europe was overlaid. The participants could then write and add images from a browser or an iOS based device through the use of an app. Additionally, the team developed a GIS web-based platform on the ArcGIS StoryMap tool (https://storymaps. arcgis. com/) to allow web users that could not attend the workshops to input further information on a map (Fig. 6 ). This allowed the team to gather further perceptions from a larger number of participants and from regions of Europe from which we had little information about. 

The resulting maps from the workshops were collated into one final map, which will then form the basis for the final illustration. The team systemized the spatial and graphical data from the maps through a group activity. Using the Mural application, the team went through each region of the map, and using an iterative process, collated the information from all the maps. This step was carried out by looking into patterns in the maps, and selecting first common items (ecosystem, species, and pressure) from the different maps, which were regarded as most important. In parallel, the information was fact-checked and its correct spatial representation ensured. 

Parallel to the mapping process, three digital stories were created on the ArcGIS StoryMaps platform to inform the broader public about the project and illustrate the process and methodologies used. ArcGIS StoryMaps is a web-based platform that allows authors to combine maps, multimedia, and narrative text in a simple platform. It allows readers to interact with content through immersive reading experiences. It's also easy to get started with and assemble content. As such, it was a suitable platform for the project's communication objectives. 

The digital stories grew together with the development of the project, and were used as a communication tool. A total of three stories were created. In the first, the project and team were presented. The second one shows the results of the Berlin Workshops. The third one shows the results of the online mapping session, and also works as a platform to collect further species stories. The illustrator Antonia Lara (www. antonialarag. com) was involved throughout the entire development of the project. This is important, since the interplay between her creative illustrative process and the mapping process was needed for the final map to be drawn. Some examples of selected preliminary illustrations for the map can be seen in Fig. 7. 

Based on the resulting map from the data analysis stage, and in collaboration with Antonia Lara, the team merged the mapping results into a collectively designed map that addresses Europe as a continent inhabited by many other species, which we addressed as "co-inhabitants" or "our neighbours". More than a human-centric map, the goal was to create an eco-centric map, which presents the contrast between the human impact in different regions of Europe. 

Through a participatory process, the project unpacked the existence of European geographic features like rivers, mountains and valleys, with a focus on endemic species living in ecosystems that are not bound by human-political borders. Utilizing collective mapping, where groups of key informants were gathered together to analyse certain territories and their characteristics, the project was a joint scientific work bringing together scientific expertise and the use of visual design platforms. A big challenge encountered here by the leading team, compared to the Biobio map, was the vast spatial surface that the Europe map was hoping to cover. During the mapping sessions in Berlin, participants were mostly of German nationality, which presented a difficulty when trying to map Western Europe and East Europe (Central Europe did not present difficulties for the participants). Nevertheless, participants from western and eastern European countries came to the online workshop, so the team was able to map more of the ecology of those Regions. 

During the mapping session it became clear that Europe's surface is too big for people to imagine and map. The team also learned that each person mapped with more precision and enthusiasm their own local region, or field of knowledge. This may indicate that people's perception of a territory has a scale limit. That threshold may be interesting to explore: is it an emotional threshold related to people's experience localized in a certain territory, or is it just a size threshold where we cannot perceive/remember properly beyond a certain surface limit?

Overall, the results that each map offers is a socially constructed perception of Europe, based on the participants gender, age and cultural background. Participants tend to recognize that Europe in general is an environmentally degraded continent, but at the same time most of them were keen to highlight the conservation of certain areas or ongoing restoration projects. Interestingly, participants felt more related to a type of conservation with aims for the coexistence with other species, more than fortress conservation proposals.
section_name: Case Study 2: Multispecies Resistance

section_content: Cities are valuable ecosystems and crucial social, creative spaces, whereas at the same time cities are hotspots of socio-ecological challenges often leading to neglecting the crucial role of urban nature. That is why a team of citizens, artists and scientists came together within the project Wildnisstadt Berlin aiming for the disclosure of Berlin's urban nature, involving humans and non-human beings alike, and raising awareness for Berlin's existing and potential biodiversity. 

After the Multispecies Resistance mapping session in Berlin, a few of the local participants proposed to apply the same methodology to the urban environment and scale of Berlin in order to bring in this type of environmental communication into the city. In the following weeks, a leading team, composed by Humboldt University, Free University of Berlin and Multispecies Resistance members, adapted the methodology to adjust to the scale of Berlin and apply for an event spot at the Mitwelt Festival hosted by the "Freizeit-und Erholungszentrum Berlin" (FEZ). With the support of FEZ, they printed A0 size maps of Berlin at various scales to test out the amount of detail needed to engage with participants. On September 2020, the team conducted two mapping sessions at an outdoor stand with the printed maps and our Multispecies Resistance illustrations to set the visual context (Fig. 8 ). These sessions focused on two sets of questions. The first set focused on the Ecopolitical Mapping themes used in the previous Multispecies Resistance sessions using a multispecies approach. The second set focused on envisioning Berlin's future by asking `What if Berlin was a National Park City?'.
section_name: Case study 3: Wildnisstadt Berlin

section_content: Members of the Wildnisstadt Berlin team explaining the project and mapping with a general audience (2020)

These sessions sparked a collaboration between the research team and the emerging social movement Wildnisstadt Berlin to advocate for the National Park City campaign in Berlin. Together they hosted an online event to engage in a dialogue forum and a collective mapping session. This digital event allowed the gathering of approximately 100 participants in total, with over 50 people partaking in Ecopolitical Mapping sessions. Break out rooms were hosted in English and in German in order to engage both international and local residents. A total of four maps were produced during these first sessions that are to be used to carry the project further in other events. The mapping sessions concluded with a discussion about the role of nature in the city of Berlin and questions of how to foster awareness for nature in urban spaces (Fig. 9 ). 

Courtesy of Multispecies Resistance.
section_name: FIGURE 8

section_content: Results of the Wildnisstadt Berlin mapping sessions (2021)

At the time of this publication the Berlin mapping sessions are still ongoing. The method has been applied in the framework of academic events (Freie Universität Berlin) and non-academic events (e. g. Wilde Möhre Festival) bringing together people with diverse knowledge. This particular case shows also how mapping sessions grow through networking and local enthusiasm and convert into new projects and mapping events, showing that the method itself has been able to engage citizens and scholars into environmental communication activities. The research team has also come to realise that the ecopolitical mapping methodology is more suited to raise questions about people's immediate surroundings and how they relate more closely to them in their everyday life in smaller scales, like cities, than at larger scales, such as the continental scale (Europe).
section_name: FIGURE 9

section_content: This research document offers a novel methodological approach to multispecies research for environmental communication. Moving beyond human-centered mapping, Ecopolitical Mapping is offered as a way to creatively and collectively communicate environmental issues while considering more-than-humans beings as our terrestrial, social, and political co-inhabitants. Especially present socio-ecological problems are complex, uncertain, involve high stakes and demand urgent decisions (Hulme, 2009). Ecopolitical Mapping can serve as a tool that improves capturing these urgent ecological problems by providing a voice to the species and places that cannot defend themselves from environmental disaster or destruction. 

In order to illustrate how this methodological approach unfolds, we have offered three different case studies and reflected on our experience as researchers and participants. The aim of the three different projects here studied was to raise awareness about nature conservation, and communicate how certain ecosystems are in need of critical protection. This approach to science communication, which brings conservation biology closer to a general audience, aims to develop a sense of wonder and attachment to local biodiversity. The final illustrated maps are and will be the result of a collaboration between scientists, specialists, artists, and passionate ecological protectors to reveal the rich biodiversity landscapes in a unique and localized process. Thus, a map is not only made up of coordinates or landmarks, but of reading layers that can be worked on graphically in order to facilitate the interpretation of the information and make it more attractive. 

The increasing complexities brought about by the global ecological crises are calling for us to actively disrupt and challenge the conceptual frameworks currently dominating the way we research and communicate (Sterback, 2014). Creative processes are nuanced and dynamic, and may be an interesting alternative to disrupt research methods. In this case, it's important to characterize assets in the creative research, the actions performed, as a way to gain insight about building better methods and understanding of possible outcomes. By first better understanding creative research possibilities, we can improve the design of communication projects that impact people's behaviour related to the ecological crisis (Linder, 2016). We believe this methodology would work in interesting ways to assess people's perception of nature conservation areas, or the participatory planning of a landscape (Nygren & Rikoon, 2008). 

The innovation in this approach was situating humans and other non-humans on the same social grid, and through participatory mapping, together with the participants we visualized the loss and extinction of species as eco-genocides. We also pointed out the specific discrimination against non-human beings and our ecosystems through texts and images. In this context, being part of a community can no longer be thought or felt as a community composed of only human beings. Being-in-common becomes a process of belonging to a community of multiple species including all those with whom we weave life on this strange and lively planet (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2015). 

This was a politically situated research and creative project. Through this process, the team wanted to show that we are not neutral, neither objective. Our research team cares. And because we care, we act. We hope that this paper contributes to reflect on how to land on coexistence coordinates and thus achieve an understanding of the affections, cares and pains that abound in the relationships between companion species. This map is neither neutral nor objective. It does not aim for a precise geographic representation or a full list of native species, but rather an artistic and political cartography of a more-than-human community called Europe, highly affected by catastrophic anthropogenic disturbances. 

Beyond and despite disaster, we love our damaged territories, and our multiple co-inhabitants. We want to share this vision with you. A deep ecology view, where each being has a value not measured by its "environmental service" but by itself, by solely existing. We believe that acknowledging this love evokes care and drives people to action and protection. We care, and because we care, we act.
section_name: Conclusion: We care, we act!

section_name: Europe beyond human borders

section_name: Multispecies Resistance Ecopolitical Mapping

section_content: Ecopolitical mapping is a creative research method coined in South Chile, while doing our first collective mapping sessions about the impact of deforestation in the Biobio watershed. Collective mapping is a participatory method usually carried out by drawing on maps with a group of people, to understand the cultural and political experiences that construct our territories. 

We use collective mapping to understand power relations between humans and nonhumans. Using a multispecies approach to our mapping, we explore more-than-humans as equally important terrestrial and social co-inhabitants, rather than as mere resources for human activities. Thus, fauna, flora, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and even whole ecosystems like rivers, forests and mountains pass from objects to subjects, extending the concept of personhood to animals, and ultimately to all ecological life. 

In 2021 we organized three ecopolitical mapping sessions: two held at the Prinzessinengärten in Berlin in August, and one conducted online in September. In these activities, our team gathered together a group of key informants such as activists, scientists, students and other nature enthusiasts. The resulting maps from the workshops were collated into one final map, which forms the basis for the map you are holding between your hands. 

During the mapping process, the map evolves from a supposed politically neutral artifact into a tool for environmental education, communication, and activism. We offer the term and approach, hoping that this methodology can be practiced and refined by other humans, allies of the tentacle kinship.
section_name: Multispecies Resistance

section_name: Making Kin

section_content: All earthlings are kin in the deepest sense. The use of "kin" means something other/more than entities tied by ancestry or genealogy. Kin is an assembling sort of word where all critters share a common "flesh," laterally, semiotically, and genealogically. 

Kin making is about building and sustaining really interesting kinds of kin networks with all these critters, often against great odds, and to care. Making kin seems to me the thing that we most need to be doing in a world that rips us apart from each other, in a world that already has more than seven and a half billion human beings with very unequal and unjust patterns of suffering and well-being.
section_name: Donna Haraway

section_name: European Pigeons

section_content: In Europe, domestic pigeons (Columba livia domestica) are treasured kin and despised pests. They have very old histories of [kinship] and becoming-with human-beings across several thousand years. Everywhere they have gone, these cosmopolitical pigeons occupy [European] cities with gusto, where they incite human love and hatred in extravagant measure. These birds tie their people into knots of classes, gender, raction, nation, colony, [and] postcolony. 

Pigeons are also "creatures of empire" -that is, animals who went with European colonists and conquerors all over the world, including places where other varieties of their kind were already well established, transforming ecologies and politics. We can recognise that humans and pigeons are in deeply entangled kin networks, we make each other. Is this the same for all the species we live amongst in Europe? Recognising this particular multispecies entanglement, pigeons fly us not into collaboration in general, but into specific crossings with all kinds of species, critters, and living beings. It is in this kin network, where we might weave something that might come unraveled and nurture the living and dying on the European continent.
section_name: Donna Haraway

section_name: Down to Europe

section_content: Situating nature in a place, in contrast to the idea of an abstract nature, brings us down to a specific time and space on Earth, and increases our awareness of its fragility. In order to come down to Europe, we must understand the more-than-human history of this continent. 

True European borders are mountains, seas and oceans, whose extension can only be grasped through movement, like any mammal or bird would do. If you would embark on a trip across the continent,you would understand that the southern regions are more mountainous. Moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. In this extended lowland, you would find yourself in the Great European Plain. 

Devastatingly, you won't meet most of Europe's large animals as they have been hunted to extinction. Today, the last wolves and bears are endangered. Deforestation and hunting have caused these animals to withdraw further into small corners of our vast continent. Brown bear (Ursus arctos) populations, living primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia, with small numbers persisting in other countries, are fragmented and continually marginalised as they lose their homes to anthropogenic construction. 

Nowadays, in the light of this environmental disaster, many would like to give back space to the Rhine. Rivers are naturally erratic and dangerous. Uncontrollable, rivers are the best definition of wild; where human control stops. Maybe the wild Rhine will come back, becoming again a sometimes deadly place to be, for humans.
section_name: Multispecies Resistance

section_name: The Hidden Giants

section_content: Many Europeans do not grasp the prevalence of cetacean species living in the waters around their home. They do not know that the warm waters around the Azores of Portugal are preferred by female sperm whales, Physeter macrocephalus. 

Many Europeans don't know that they needn't fly in a Boeing 737 Airliner to see an endangered animal of the same size in Icelandic waters: the mighty blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus. 

They don't know that they can see the spectacular acrobatics of humpback whales, Megaptera novaeanglia, around Greenland and Norway, as these sea mammoths throw their thirty tonne bodies out of the water. For a few exhilarating seconds the humpbacks appear weightless before crashing back down again into their water home with a loud splash. 

They don't realise that common minke whales, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, thrive in the west of Scotland. And that, just to the north of Scotland, killer whales, Orcinus orca, are holding on strong, while in the Strait of Gibraltar, killer whales are critically endangered. But that's not all of our whales. Thirty-three species of cetaceans inhabit European waters including eight baleen and twenty-five toothed whales. Sadly, in Europe, our populations of cetaceans may be more highly endangered than anywhere else globally. Cetaceans are threatened by noise, plastic and chemical pollution, alongside entanglement and more. The range of the Northern Atlantic Right Whale, Eubalaena glacialis, once extended into our waters, but is now functionally extinct in European waters. These giants echo a stark reminder of the urgency to protect who lives here with us.
section_name: Natalie Sinclair

section_name: The Wild Rhine

section_content: We all live, often without realizing, within a river basin. Our home extends far beyond the house walls that shelter us. It extends through the windows towards forests, creeks and rivers, flowing downhill until the sea. A source of life, rivers are also seen as obstacles, as navigation routes and sometimes even as a source of death and destruction. 

The Rhine river, which used to be the border between the Roman empire and the Germanic tribes, was a wild and untamable river. Until the beginning of the 1800's, the Upper Rhine was an immense meandering network of interconnecting streams, coves and marshy hollows, surrounded by forest, which were home of a vast array of fish, insects, frogs and birds. But the swampy floodplains were also a breeding ground for malaria, typhus and dysentery, which could be deadly for humans. 

In the 19th century this wild river was significantly tamed. In 1817, the hydraulic engineer Johann Gottfried Tulla began his endeavour to channelize the Upper Rhine from Basel to Worms, ultimately destroying the natural meandering of the river and shortening it by more than 80 kms between the two cities. The impact of highwater on the riverside villages was reduced, and breeding grounds for disease disappeared, but the river was devastatingly changed. 

Dikes disconnected the river from its floodplains and precious habitats for its river inhabitants were lost, while actually increasing the danger of heavy flooding downstream. After Tulla's project, the Rhine's riverbed sank deeper and deeper, up to 7 metres, leading to groundwater levels sinking problematically.
section_name: Multispecies Resistance

section_name: Bees Under Your Feet

section_content: It is the unexpected wild side of cities found on forgotten industrial sites or near parking lots that is especially fascinating. Urban ecologists call these places "novel anthropogenic ecosystems"; and some of them are even granted protection status in the city of Berlin. Here, thriving urban ecosystems can be found in unique industrial heritage sites such as the death zone ("Todesstreifen") along the Berlin wall. 

Around 330 species of wild bees are recorded to reside in Berlin -making up more than half of all German bee species. These wild bees need "untidy" places: dead wood and scrubs; open soil and demolition edges. Berlin's "urban industrial nature" is ideal for many of them. But they can also be found where you would least expect it: in the pavement cracks beneath your feet! In spring, the characteristic hill aggregations of solitary mining bees, like Andrena fulva, appear for a few weeks. Here, each female bee carefully builds and provides for their own offspring. In later summer, you might walk on top of much tinier holes where vigilant furrow bees are on the lookout, with their heads sticking out of the entrance. These bees nest in true colonies, very similar to honeybees, though much smaller. 

All year round, dozens of species of wild bees, digging wasps, and ants build their nests directly into the pavement, sharing a tiny ecosystem with many more species of plants and mosses. They all dwell in a structure that has been built entirely for the needs of our human species: a reminder that non-human life can thrive on our doorstep -if we just give it some space to grow.
section_name: Sophie Lokatis

section_content: Today there are no house crows (Corvus splendens) left in the town of Hoek van Holland. For over 20 years, a small colony of these birds made their lives here, thought to have established as a result of birds that stowed away on one of the many container ships traveling into the busy Port of Rotterdam from across the world. 

When I first visited this area, the government had already killed most of these birds, worried that they might spread out into Europe. Some of the activists I spoke to, who were opposing the killing of these birds, told me that as the government pushed forward with its lethal plans, and it was clear that legal challenges would fail, they had announced the possible presence of corvid 'onderduikers' ("under divers" in dutch; symbolically meaning birds hidden away until it was safe to fly free). 

If these birds existed at all, they were presumably subjects of the kind of daily care routines-housing, feeding, cleaning-that are required to keep animals alive and well in captivity. But, they would also have been captives with no say in the matter; frightened and stressed animals not accustomed to this context, no matter how well-intentioned. 

In this situation, these crows remind us that care is always complex and compromised, often made especially so when it is practiced across significant barriers of intelligibility: when care does not look or feel as such. At the same time, however, the threat, or promise, of these crows is an act of the kind of 'care for the future' that is often simply called hope. This map is an act of radical care for our multispecies world. By recognizing the intimate relationships of care for nonhuman beings in Europe, we begin to manifest new ways of knowing species -outside of and beyond logics of commodification, instrumentalization, exploitation, and eradication.
section_name: Corvid 'Onderduikers' Thom van Dooren

section_name: Multispecies Care

section_content: The map is a vital practice of being-in-common where you can no longer think or feel as a community of beings humans only. We become a community of multiple species including all those with whom we weave life on this strange continent and lovely planet. 

Take this map to reflect on how to land on coexistence coordinates and thus achieve an understanding of the affections, cares and pains that abound in the relationships between companion species. 

In the last few centuries, over half of Europe's original forests disappeared due to deforestation. Only one quarter of land area remains as forests, such as the taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. However, most of the European forests have been replaced by monoculture plantations of conifers leaving only poor habitats for many forest dwelling species. 

As wolves, brown bears and other forest dwellers walk in the Romanian forest, they are living an earthly life, just like you and us. They have a history. They are not atemporal beings. All these stories of love and disaster make what Europe is today: a morethan-human community. 

"These times called the Anthropocene are times of multispecies urgency: of great mass death and extinction; of onrushing disasters. "
section_name: Multispecies Resistance Multispecies Resistance Team

section_content: Bialowieza forest is the biggest and last primeval transboundary forest in Europe, at the border between Poland and Belarus. In this place, non-humans pass by the border fence between the two countries without really caring about geopolitical frontiers. Some years ago, I was lucky to be part of a team of scientists who entered the core zone of Bialowieza, where the oldest trees dwell. 

After some hours walking, we knew we were inside the innermost part of the forest. Everywhere you looked, everything was full of life. Insects buzzed through the air and seemed like dancing elves. Mushrooms grew on lying dead wood looking like dwarf hats. In the mud, you could see wolf and giant boar tracks. I could easily imagine lynx prowling through this mixed forest full of lime, hornbeam, spruce and magnificent ancient oak trees. I was in awe. 

We were walking on an old rail track when suddenly we stopped and fell silent. Through the thick forest' understory, we could not see, but we could hear loud snorts. Between a dense group of oak trees, we saw them. Slow and elegant, a herd of bison passed by, meters away from us. The spirits of the forest, I thought. We did not move, our senses fixed on this wild group of nonhumans, appreciating their thick furs, and huge bodies. When the last bison was gone, we could breathe again, and the air was fresh and clear. Our team of scientists also was clear, Bialowieza forest must be protected.
section_name: Monika Hoffmann

section_name: Griffon

section_name: Vultures of Life

section_content: Perhaps due to their proclivity of diving deep into the rotting carcasses of wild and domestic animals, Griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) have been regarded as "ugly" and "disgusting" creatures, as harbingers of bad omens and death. 

Yet as many people who are in love with these large wide-ranging scavengers will attest this conception could not be further from the truth. Vultures, through their scavenging activity, play a key role in preventing disease from spreading and for helping to turn dead matter back into life. 

Historically, vultures have coexisted alongside humans with their extensive farming practices across the Iberian Peninsula, feeding on the carcasses of domestic livestock left in the fields or gathered by farmers in feeding sites or muladeres. Once persecuted to near extinction into the 20th century across their European territories, Griffon vultures have once again become abundant. Yet they are also highly vulnerable, especially to poisoning by consuming carcasses laced with lead from hunting ammunition or residues from veterinary drugs. 

Creatively adjusting to human dominated landscapes, the mesmerizing scavengers now not only inhabit remote mountain ranges, but are increasingly observed to feed on landfills, close to villages and towns across and beyond Catalonia. 

are Nature
section_name: Sara Asu Schroer Clara Tei xi dor

section_content: Some people have the idea that cities are the antithesis of nature. In reality, cities are urban habitats that can be more diverse and abundant with life than the rural swathes that surround them. You can find true urban wilderness in graveyards, playgrounds and forgotten parking lots, or on abandoned railway sides and airports. Not only that, but if humans are part of nature, aren't cities part of nature too? City dwellers deserve as much respect as mountain or forest dwellers. Street pigeons (Columba livia domestica) are an urban and common species, and the single most-spotted bird in London. They flock to the squares, scavenge the streets for food, and defecate on important buildings of England's capital city. If these feral pigeons were rural and rare, I reckon they would be loved and admired as much as other wilder birds. Along with squirrels and foxes, street pigeons are stunning creatures that are part of our city ecosystems, it's time to acknowledge them as our neighbours. 

From my front door, if I simply wait long enough, I'll see the local fox, local badger, gulls, peregrine falcons, pigeons and sparrows. London is a lively neighborhood indeed. We live in an planetary ecological crisis: a genocide of others species, based on the discrimination against non-human beings and ecosystems.
section_name: Daniel Raven Ellison

section_content: A multispecies perspective understands this crisis as a relational crisis. A crisis of power asymmetries between humans, other species and our environments. Acknowledging these power relationships between species opens our eyes to recognizing the impact that humans are capable of and how we must respond to these disasters. 

Beyond disaster, we love our territories. We care, and because we care, we act. We want to share this vision with you. A deep ecology view, where each being has a value not measured by its "environmental service" but by itself, by solely existing. We believe that acknowledging this love evokes care and drives people to action and protection. 

'Multispecies Resistance: A Cartography of Love and Disaster' is a visual and participatory project that aims to inspire you, an inhabitant of Europe, to explore your home and appreciate your own nonhuman neighbors and territories. 

We are a team of scientists, artists, and researchers, collaborating for the creation of an ecopolitical map to show Europe from a multispecies point of view. This map reveals ecosystems and diverse creatures that inhabit the continent of Europe beyond traditional human frontiers. 

A Multispecies Resistance perspective understands the ecological crisis we live in as a relational crisis. It's a relational crisis between humans, other species, and our environment. 

A Cartography of Love Disaster Nuestro hogar es la antigua residencia de una multitud de seres, quienes desde hace miles de años cohabitan los bosques y montañas del Biobío. Esta geografía fue el bastión de la vida durante la última glaciación, periodo durante el cual enormes glaciares cubrieron casi la totalidad de la cordillera de los Andes. En aquella época, los valles lluviosos de Nahuelbuta y el litoral costero dieron refugio a gran parte de plantas y animales -como los diversos Nothofagus o la carismática ranita de Darwin-que, tras el derretimiento de los grandes hielos, han vuelto a poblar las tierras australes. 

Habitamos las costas del furioso océano Pacífico, donde decenas de ríos vierten sus nutritivas aguas y la corriente de Humboldt mantiene un constante flujo de nutrientes desde el sur. A esto se une el aporte de la surgencia, la cual consiste en grandes columnas de agua que, debido a la acción de los vientos australes, ascienden transportando nutrientes desde las profundidades del océano hacia la superficie. Todo esto impulsa el desarrollo de una abundante biodiversidad marina, con amplios intermareales rocosos, refugio de una sorprendente variedad de seres; equinodermos, bivalvos y anémonas. Estos dan paso a los bosques submarinos de algas pardas -una verdadera selva bajo el mar-, para finalmente abrirse a mar abierto, hogar de grandes peces, medusas, ballenas y otras criaturas. 

Además, las costas del Biobío corresponden a una de las zonas con mayor biodiversidad del país, pues en ellas se forma un ecotono, esto es, la unión de dos o más ecosistemas. En el Biobío convergen el bosque esclerófilo del norte, junto al bosque caducifolio y el bosque laurifolio del sur, ofreciendo a la vida enormes posibilidades para florecer. 

En medio de este territorio, los humanos poblamos campos y ciudades. Hemos construido nuestras edificaciones sobre una tierra surcada por caminos invisibles, tránsito de zorros, hurones, chingues, pumas y ballenas en una misma geografía. 

El canto del chucao resuena en el bosque, mientras la sigilosa güiña desciende de la alta cordillera a las ciudades. Su fugaz visita es captada por las cámaras de celulares, y nos recuerda la existencia de un vecino desterrado a la periferia urbana. 

Estas criaturas habitan los recuerdos de nuestros abuelos, sin embargo un creciente movimiento de ciudadanos trabaja para recuperar no solo la memoria, si no también el bienestar de estas poblaciones de cohabitantes. 

Las costas del Biobío son territorios de agua, donde la tierra se define como un borde ribereño. Esta comprende una superficie donde las abundantes lluvias son dirigidas por una marcada topografía; un lugar de intercambio donde los río entregan sus aguas al mar y a la vez éste ingresa tierra adentro por medio de grandes humedales costeros, también llamados marismas. 

Los grandes ríos provenientes de la cordillera de los Andes son de origen mixto, es decir, sus aguas crecen tanto con la lluvia (pluvial), como el deshielo de los glaciares en primavera (nival), entre estos contamos al Biobío y el Itata. Sin embargo, los ríos que tienen su origen en las cimas de la Cordillera de la Costa son exclusivamente pluviales, es decir, completamente dependientes de las lluvias. 

El principal mecanismo que permite a estos ríos fluir constantemente, incluso en verano, es el almacenamiento del agua en el suelo. Cuando llueve, gran parte del agua infiltra en la tierra de manera superficial. Luego, por efecto de la gravedad y según el nivel de porosidad del suelo, una porción del agua percola y alimenta los acuíferos subterráneos, las aguas que fluyen ocultas bajo nuestros pies. Por esto, mejor que la construcción de embalses -lo cual implica la deforestación de grandes áreas de bosque y la detención del flujo de nutrientes y sedimentos de un río libre-, es la conservación de un bosque sano, que mantiene el agua en el suelo, dejándola fluir lentamente durante el año. 

Un caso especial son las turberas de Nahuelbuta, ecosistema compuesto por el esfagno (Sphagnum sp. ), musgo que que absorbe el agua como una gran esponja. Este ecosistema es un gigantesco reservorio de agua dulce, donde las turberas representan los glaciares del territorio; reciben el agua de invierno en la cima de Nahuelbuta, la cual liberan paulatinamente a través del año, alimentando a los ríos de la zona; Carampangue, Curanilahue, Trongol y Caramávida, entre tantos otros. Luego, las aguas de estos ríos son entregadas al mar, en las zonas estuarinas de agua salobre. 

Aguas terrestres y oceánicas se entremezclan en nuestras costas. Cada día, una gran cantidad de agua se evapora desde la superficie del mar y luego se condensa, agrupandose en forma de nubes. Esta vaguada costera vuelva a ingresar al continente, donde cae en forma de lluvia o nieve sobre las cabeceras de las cuencas, para así proseguir el ciclo esencial del agua, principal escultor de las costas del Biobío. 

Explorar nuestro territorio es recorrer una zona de desastre, donde la vida silvestre y relictos naturales son la frágil evidencia de una anterior abundancia biológica, actualmente fragmentada y degradada. Habitamos una zona de sacrificio, término utilizado para caracterizar a una región que ha estado permanentemente sujeta a daño ambiental. Comprender esto nos permite visibilizar la masacre de los ecosistemas que nuestra especie ha realizado. 

Ajeno a la calma que evoca su nombre, el océano Pacífico oculta un sinfín de temibles criaturas, las más increíbles habitando las profundidades oceánicas, aguas de calamares gigantes y extraños peces. Pocos son los seres que se han adentrado en esta oscuridad para desafiar sus dominios, y ninguna tan impresionante como Mocha Dick, el cachalote albino. Cuenta la leyenda que la enorme criatura solo se mostraba en medio de las tormentas que usualmente azotaban a la Isla Mocha, a la cual debe su nombre. Nadaba cerca de los barcos, mientras los tripulantes observaban incrédulos sus múltiples cicatrices, secuelas de batallas con sus enemigos submarinos y los arpones de los desafortunados balleneros que habían desafiado al leviatán. Durante más de cuarenta años, Mocha Dick se enfrentó a los cazadores de ballenas, que solo podían fascinarse con la destreza del cachalote, y aterrorizarse con su fiereza. Muchos decían que la ballena era responsable del hundimiento de cientos de buques balleneros, atribuyéndole una maliciosa conciencia al gigantesco cetáceo. Su voluntad permanece un misterio. Tal vez Mocha Dick solo defendía su territorio, con la gélida determinación de quien ha sido forjado por las aguas del fin del mundo. 

El tiempo comenzó con la caída de las primeras lluvias. En el cielo tronaron relámpagos y la suave garúa dio paso a una torrencial tempestad. A lo lejos, sobre el mar, se dibujó la silueta de una serpiente, Kay Kay, cuyas escamas escarlatas parecían absorber la poca luz del día, reflejando solo una densa oscuridad. De pronto, el mar se levantó y empezó a cubrir la tierra, arrasando con todo a su paso. Los habitantes -mapuches, otros animales, hongos y plantas-contemplaban incrédulos su inesperado final. La tierra comenzó a moverse y, en respuesta a la danza del diluvio, se oyó un profundo y prolongado bramido. Treng Treng emergió desde las entrañas de la tierra. Esta serpiente, similar en tamaño, pero de movimientos más firmes y con escamas que recordaban la dureza de las rocas, produjo con su aparición una metamorfosis en la tierra inundada: entre los océanos comenzaron a alzarse gigantescas islas, formando valles y montañas. Refugiados sobre estas prominencias, los habitantes admiraron durante días el violento baile entre Kay Kay y Treng Treng -las dos serpientes primordiales-, mientras la tierra y el mar seguían acomodándose a los impactos de la confrontación. Luego llegó la calma, la cual ha perdurado. Aún hoy son reconocibles los vestigios del mítico enfrentamiento entre ambas víboras divinas; las montañas y los lagos del sur, testimonios de las fuerzas naturales que han dado forma a este mundo.
section_name: Multispecies Resistance Team

section_name: Autores

section_content: La economía de nuestro territorio es de carácter extractivista, basada en la explotación de recursos naturales por sobre la protección de nuestro ya degradado ambiente. Dependemos de un sistema agrícola donde los cultivos son irrigados con glifosato, herbicida cancerígeno que infiltra a las napas de agua subterránea que abastecen nuestros hogares. Las emisiones atmosféricas de la industria termoeléctrica dañan el aire que respiramos, exponiendo a poblaciones enteras -a los habitantes de Coronel, por ejemplo-a enfermedades respiratorias y congénitas. La pesca industrial no considera los ciclos naturales de peces y moluscos, con prácticas como la pesca de arrastre, la cual, lejos de nuestras miradas, convierte el lecho oceánico en un irrecuperable desierto submarino. 

Además, las inadecuadas prácticas de la industria forestal, como la tala rasa o la plantación de monocultivos de especies pirófitas (pinos y eucaliptos), ha producido una ola de incendios en verano, que no solo amenazan la vida humana, si no también la existencia de los escasos relictos de bosque nativo que sobreviven en el territorio. Como si todo lo anterior no fuera suficiente, los ríos son utilizados como vertederos de basura y contaminantes. El gran río Biobío es receptor de residuos industriales líquidos, vertidos por las plantas de celulosa en Nacimiento y Laja, los cuales están contaminando el reservorio de agua dulce más grande de la cuenca, el cual abastece a miles de humanos y otros animales. 

En las ciudades, el desarrollo urbano no reconoce la geografía del Biobío, y a partir de retroexcavadoras y dinamita, avanza implacablemente. Desde la fundación de las ciudades, las construcciones han rellenado los ríos y humedales que se extendían en la zona. En la actualidad, la urbanización continúa expandiéndose bajo esta lógica, mermando el ya reducido entorno y privando a las comunidades de sus usos culturales y beneficios ambientales. El humedal Rocuant Andalién y el humedal Los Batros son ejemplos de esto, dado que ambos,a pesar de presentar esenciales funciones ecosistémicas, como mitigar inundaciones en invierno y ser reservorios de agua en caso de catástrofes, se encuentran amenazados por proyectos inmobiliarios. 

A pesar de la oposición ciudadana a las situaciones descritas, el Estado chileno utiliza la violencia policial para reprimir a las comunidades humanas y su derecho a elegir otro tipo de desarrollo. Así, sucesos recientes, como los asesinatos a los activistas ambientales; Macarena Valdés, Alejandro Castro y Camilo Catrillanca, reafirman la vulnerabilidad política que representa vivir en una zona de sacrificio. 

Invitarlos a explorar y contemplar, sin reconocer lo anterior, sería cínico de nuestra parte. Nuestra sociedad ha compartimentado la naturaleza, eliminando sus habitantes y dejando pequeños reductos (santuarios, reservas y parques), que son tan solo una vitrina que presenta un "romántico pasado". Acribillados por mensajes de bienestar y felicidad asociados a visitar estos lugares prístinos fuera de la ciudad, hemos olvidado la urgencia de la situación que vivimos. 

Y ante el destrozo al que es sometida nuestra tierra, respondemos caminando y observando. Localizar los antiguos esteros cubiertos por asfalto, recorrer plantaciones y dimensionar la extensión de su superficie -con sorprendentes parches de bosque nativo aún en medio de ellas-, son nuestras técnicas de combate, en nuestra condición de cartógrafos de la destrucción. Así, la geografía del desastre es la exploración de los escombros después de la guerra, porque bajo ellos aún existen supervivientes con la energía necesaria para repoblar sus antiguos territorios.
section_name: 2019