The paper and presentation focus on the
evolution of community-based mapping techniques
increasingly being associated with Geographic
Information Technologies (GIT), and specifically on
methods used in Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam for enabling marginalised communities to
depict their spatial knowledge in the form
geo-referenced and scaled data and to visualize it in
two and/or three dimensions.
Participatory 3-D
Modelling (P3DM) captures local knowledge and combines it with more
traditional spatial information, such as contour intervals to produce
– through a participatory process - functional stand-alone relief
models. The process has proved to generate high level of awareness
on the distribution and use of resources over relatively vast areas
and on the functioning of linked ecosystems. It was found that 3-D
models provide stakeholders with an efficient, user-friendly and
relatively accurate spatial learning, research, planning and
management tool, the information from which can be extracted and
further elaborated in a GIS environment. The synergies resulting from the combinations of P3DM
and GIT make data depicted on relief models widely exchangeable
through maps and digital datasets. These formats add veracity and
authority to community knowledge and make the power that comes from
recording and controlling space available also to those sectors of
society, which have traditionally been disenfranchised by maps.
Mastering space at grassroots level has
been instrumental to improving the capacity of communities in
interacting with national and international institutions and to play a
proactive role in inducing change and/or innovation in terms of
resource allocation and management.
The evolution of the P3DM method and its recent
integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global
Positioning Systems (GPS) is discussed taking into account the
presence or absence of enabling environments. P3D models are currently
being used in Southeast Asia for (i) conducting community-based
research on distribution of and access to resources in protected areas
and critical watersheds; (ii) developing resource use, ancestral
domain and protected area management plans; (iii) negotiating boundary
delineation and zoning; (iv) raising environmental awareness; (v)
facilitating conflict resolutions and (vi) addressing resource tenure
issues.
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