Co-creating an Earth Defenders Toolkit with the Indigenous Mapping Community at #2020IMW
By: Rudo Kemper
Tags: Indigenous, Digital Democracy, Activism, Mapping, Open Source Software

Last month, Digital Democracy and our allies announced the launch of the Earth Defenders Toolkit, a new collection of open-source tools and training materials for communities on the frontlines of the struggle to defend critical ecosystems around the world.

In preparation for the public launch of the Earth Defenders Toolkit to the public, we convened a special focus group session about the Toolkit at the 2020 Virtual Indigenous Mapping Workshop, and I’m delighted to share with you some of what we learned.

But first, let me explain what exactly the Earth Defenders Toolkit is.

Earth Defenders Toolkit: A quick primer 🧰

The Earth Defenders Toolkit will be composed of mapping, monitoring and digital-storytelling tools, and accompanying training materials that leverage technology to support local autonomy and ownership over data. We will also be creating a collaborative platform for local community organizations and their allies and partners to co-create the toolkit and share digital knowledge. Learn more about the Earth Defenders Toolkit »

Although Digital Democracy and others have long been building tools for communities guided by principles of solidarity technology, we were inspired to steward the creation of the Earth Defenders Toolkit because we want to do better at ensuring that frontline communities can use these tools directly without creating dependency on outside support.

The Indigenous Mapping Workshop community

We are looking to engage with more communities of knowledge and practice that are already leveraging technologies to defend lands and ecosystems to help us achieve this goal of increasing community self-sufficiency and autonomy in using the Earth Defenders Toolkit. We could think of no better community to help us with insight and ideas than the Indigenous Mapping Collective, a global network of Indigenous mappers and allies that has coalesced around the ever-growing Indigenous Mapping Workshop (IMW), spearheaded by our friends at the Firelight Group.

Dd’s technical sessions at #2020IMW. Note: Videos and training materials for Terrastories, Mapeo Mobile, and Mapeo Desktop will be made available soon.

We were honored to contribute no less than four technical sessions at this year’s at #2020IMW virtual. These included technical trainings for Mapeo Desktop, Mapeo Mobile, and Terrastories, and one special interactive session on Earth Defenders Toolkit — the project’s very first unveiling! 🎉

My colleague Jen Castro and I had the privilege of hosting the 45 minute session on Earth Defenders Toolkit. We decided to organize the session around Indigenous ally protocols of being clear on what we are offering, and open to receiving. We also wanted to make our session be as helpful as possible for the community by creating the space for people to stay in touch with each other and sharing their needs and abundances, and structured the session to be the start of a broader conversation and the emergence of a community around earth defender tools for Indigenous peoples worldwide.

With permission of participants, we are sharing our virtual welcome circle and a few key insights that we will carry forward in the design of the Earth Defenders Toolkit.

Earth Defenders Toolkit: Insights from the Indigenous Mapping Community