“Participatory Mapping for a Sustainable Amazon” is advancing in Bolivia, Colombia, and Guatemala, bringing together knowledge exchange and open technologies to strengthen the territorial autonomy of Indigenous communities in the Amazon and Mesoamerica.
Versión en español
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), in collaboration with the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés de Bolivia (UMSA), the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Colombia (UNAULA) through its Center for Studies on Populations, Mobilizations and Territories – POMOTE, and the Rafael Landívar University of Guatemala, and in coordination with the Wairari Atún Sacha Cabildo in Colombia, the Ancestral Brotherhood of San José Poaquil in Guatemala, the Indigenous Council of the Great Nation Tacana People, the Mosetene Indigenous Community in Bolivia, across the Andean-Amazon region and the Great Forests of Mesoamerica, along with the participation of the Liberarnos o Extinguirnos Collective as a communications and advocacy partner for Amazon preservation, are jointly implementing the Participatory Mapping for a Sustainable Amazon project. This work is supported by a grant from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), through its Seed Grant program Tropical Forests in the Americas: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Environmental Transformations, SG-TF020-2024.
Karla Picado, the Project Manager, explains that the initiative aims to strengthen participatory mapping in Indigenous communities in southern La Paz, Bolivia, the Guatemalan highlands, and the Andean-Amazonian region of Colombia, using open mapping tools to conserve biodiversity, manage forests, and adapt to climate change. In May, fieldwork began as part of training cycles that include the use of drones and geotechnologies. The project also fosters knowledge exchange to identify socio-environmental conflicts and local protection strategies.
In Bolivia, the UMSA team chose to work with the community of Sapecho, located within the territory of the Great Nation Tacana, in the municipality of Palos Blancos, Sud Yungas province, department of La Paz. The decision was based on its proximity to the university’s experimental station, which facilitates technical and logistical support. This region is known for its natural diversity, including tropical forests and mountain ranges, and for its cultural richness shaped by Indigenous and intercultural communities.
The Sapecho community is mostly composed of people from the Tacana nation. For this reason, the Indigenous Council of the Tacana People (CIPTA) designated the community members who would participate in the workshop. As part of the project’s interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, regional park rangers and firefighters from La Paz—who frequently respond to forest fires near Sapecho—also joined the effort, recognizing the value of coordinated territorial management.
The workshop, designed and facilitated by HOT and UMSA, followed a participatory, interdisciplinary, and hands-on methodology. It combined theoretical sessions, field activities, and community dialogues. The approach sought to integrate technological knowledge—such as the use of drones through Drone Tasking Manager, OpenStreetMap, and ChatMap—with local wisdom to empower participants and produce useful data for fire prevention and integrated territorial management.
Engineer Patricia Llanos, who leads the project in Bolivia and coordinated the fieldwork in Sapecho, emphasized that this first workshop marked the beginning of a deep and transformative process. She explained that the experience allowed participants to capture their relationship with the land and laid the foundation for long-term collaboration:
Through the lived experiences of local communities, regional residents, and students at the Sapecho experimental station, we captured the essence of their bond with the land. We want to reflect these in maps that portray a rich and diverse reality. Turning this data into meaningful information for risk prevention, spatial planning, and environmental conservation is a crucial challenge that we are eager to support.
Patricia also observed the strong commitment shown by the participants and stressed that a sustainable future for the Amazon must be built upon local knowledge and inter-institutional collaboration.
Emilio Mariscal, HOT’s Software Engineering Manager, noted that the Bolivia activity was much more than a technical pilot: it was a true knowledge exchange. He highlighted that impactful tech development cannot occur in isolation or solely behind a screen. In his words:
Learning about geospatial systems isn’t usually part of people’s lives—especially when their priority is protecting their homes, forests, and lives. We need to create more user-friendly solutions.
During the Sapecho workshop, Emilio introduced ChatMap, a mapping tool that works through messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal. Later, while watching the Participatory Mapping for a Sustainable Amazon webinar from Argentina, he witnessed an unexpected moment: a young Indigenous Bolivian participant shared how he learned to use ChatMap and planned to map illegal mining in his community.
This kind of use case—what I call ‘organic,’ because no one pushed the software, someone simply found it useful and adopted it—is incredibly compelling.
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In Colombia, the UNAULA team, in coordination with HOT staff, visited the Wairari Atún Sacha Cabildo in the municipality of Santa Rosa, department of Cauca, in the Andean-Amazonian region. This community belongs to the Inga people, and its cabildo house—an important site for political and cultural organization—is located in the village of La Tarabita. The Cabildo emerged as a response to multiple challenges in a region where there was previously no Indigenous representation in the municipal capital.
La Tarabita is characterized by significant ecological and cultural diversity, hosting Andean mountain ecosystems, humid forest remnants, and key watershed areas for community life. This territory is shaped by historical and ongoing tensions between extractive economies, geopolitical interests, Indigenous resistance, and lifeways rooted in care for the land.
During the intensive participatory mapping workshop, a wide range of community-oriented tools were used to facilitate the collection, organization, and visualization of territorial information. These included drones for generating orthophotos, OpenStreetMap, Mapillary, OSMTracker, OsmAnd, Tasking Manager, ChatMap, and QGIS.
Leonardo Jiménez García, director of the POMOTE Center at UNAULA, shared that the experience in Santa Rosa was far more than a technical activity. From his perspective, it was transformative for both the facilitation team and the community:
The first visit to the Wairari Atún Sacha Cabildo exceeded all expectations. There, the map stopped being a measuring tool and became a medium for dialogue and identity. Listening to cabildo authorities, walking ancestral paths, and feeling the land through each shared reference helped us understand that mapping is not a neutral technique—it’s a political and emotional stance toward territory.
One of the most valuable lessons, Leonardo said, was seeing how mapping tools, when embraced by the community, became instruments of power for defending life, memory, and autonomy. The enthusiasm with which youth explored GPS, base maps, and mobile apps was not driven by trends, but by a conscious decision to strengthen their territory.
A mapping project in the Amazon cannot be detached from the historical struggles for Indigenous self-determination, or from the tensions impacting their lands. What was at stake during this visit was more than a map—it was the opportunity to build rooted, dignified, and reciprocal knowledge.
For Leonardo, this marked the beginning of a necessary and profound conversation on sustainability, not based on data extraction but mutual knowledge sharing.
Juan Melo, from the HOT team, recalled how during the first days of the workshop they carried out automated drone flights near the cabildo. Initially cautious, the participants grew more curious and confident with the new technology.
On the fourth day, we held a “minca de la palabra”—a collective conversation. We showed them our work, shared aerial images and videos of the territory, and talked about the importance of protecting a space that means so much to everyone. It was an intimate, reflective, and powerful moment. Some people, seeing their land from the sky for the first time, were deeply moved.
By the fifth day, the group had transformed. Participants confidently flew drones, understood the logic behind mapping, and clearly grasped their purpose. The learning curve had been surpassed with dedication.
The technical outcomes came quickly: the first freely available orthophoto of the cabildo’s territory was generated and uploaded to OpenAerialMap, and ground-level imagery was shared via Mapillary. However, for Juan, the most important achievement was not the outputs—but the process:
What remains is a living experience—an effort that reinforced the link between technology and land, between technical knowledge and ancestral wisdom.
Between 2022 and 2024, ancestral authorities of San José Poaquil in Guatemala worked with HOT on the Open Cities project, an initiative to support communal forest conservation through participatory mapping and open technologies. In a region shaped by territorial struggle, the Indigenous town hall and ancestral brotherhood regained legal control over communal lands and began a process of community-based monitoring and restoration.
From the beginning, local youth used drones to monitor critical forest zones. “We realized how capable young people are at using these technologies and building things,” said Carlos A. Duarte, technical lead on the project. Thanks to collective effort, San José Poaquil went from being a blank spot on OpenStreetMap to a fully mapped territory—including roads, buildings, and communal lands. The data helped create a forest management plan and opened new paths for land use planning, community governance, and public funding access.
The project also transformed those who participated. “These communal lands give us maize, coffee, firewood. They’re part of our history,” said Carlos Ovalle, a youth representative of the Ancestral Brotherhood. “Being part of this effort is a responsibility and a way to care for what’s ours.” Through mapping and organizing, the community integrated ancestral knowledge and digital tools to reinforce autonomy against threats like illegal logging or agricultural expansion.
Today, the lessons from Open Cities feed into Participatory Mapping for a Sustainable Amazon. This new phase seeks to reactivate the strategic use of data, strengthen the youth community of San José Poaquil, and replicate the model in other Indigenous territories. “It’s not just about putting data out there,” Duarte concludes, “but showing how to use it to make new things happen.”
In this phase, fieldwork has focused on respectful dialogue with the two ancestral Indigenous organizations overseeing communal forest management. The aim is to build a strong, intergenerational community of practice, committed to responsible territorial stewardship and knowledge governance.
Reflecting on the work in Bolivia and Colombia, Céline Jacquin, HOT’s Senior Manager for Latin America, believes this project marks a milestone by combining participatory mapping with a transdisciplinary approach. Beyond its methodological value, she highlights its practical potential and long-term vision for Amazonian territories:
Its greatest value lies in replicability. By integrating open technologies—such as Drone Tasking Manager, ChatMap, and OpenStreetMap—with the knowledge and practices of Indigenous communities, we generate concrete tools to strengthen territorial autonomy, prevent socio-environmental conflicts, influence political processes, and access support for self-determined development models.
For Céline, field results speak for themselves. What happened in Sapecho and Santa Rosa shows that when communities take ownership of these tools, they not only better protect their lands, but also document threats—like deforestation or illegal mining—with greater speed, precision, and legitimacy.
This kind of mapping goes beyond the technical—it becomes a form of community monitoring and active territorial defense.
In her experience, supporting initiatives like this means betting on sustainable, replicable solutions rooted in local realities. Every map becomes a tool for action; every data point, a lever for more just policies; and every trained community, a stronger voice in the face of climate change. The Amazon needs action—now is the time to champion proposals that blend technological innovation, community participation, and deep commitment to the land.
Learn more about this project at: