An Amazon United: Mapping for Future Resilience

HOT continues to engage with local communities and academic partners in Bolivia, Colombia and Guatemala to strengthen mapping capacity to improve tropical forest conservation and promote climate change adaptation. In Colombia (Santa Rosa, Bota Caucana), Bolivia (Palos Blancos and Ixiamas), and Guatemala (San José Poaquil), community members conducted participatory mapping to identify threats such as deforestation, mining, illicit crops, and climate impacts. Community members participated in training on the use of open technologies such as  OpenStreetmap and low-cost drones to capture local imagery. (It is expensive to obtain recent satellite imagery and lower cost options are often 5-10 years out of date.) 

In Bolivia, HOT is working with the community of Sapecho, located within the territory of the Great Nation Tacana. This region is known for its natural diversity, including tropical forests and mountain ranges, and cultural richness shaped by Indigenous and intercultural communities. HOT staff trained a group of students, firefighters, park rangers, and indigenous community members to use drones and other mapping tools to map and monitor land areas for forest fires and other hazards. Bringing this diverse group together will also improve coordinated territorial management.

In Colombia, HOT is working in the Wairari Atún Sacha Cabildo in the municipality of Santa Rosa with the Inga people. The area has significant ecological and cultural diversity, hosting Andean mountain ecosystems, humid forests, and key watershed areas for community life. We conducted training workshops so that community members could learn how to collect, visualize, and analyze data using a number of open source tools, including low cost drones and the messaging-based app ChatMap which enables the creation of maps through instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal.

Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), HOT, and the Agustín Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC) partnered with a number of youth collectives including SAGEMA and TadeoMappers, the National Youth Environmental Network, and the Youth Network for Disaster Risk Reduction to organize the 2025 National Mapathon of Colombia that took place May 5-June 27, 2025. During the mapathon, more than 250 participants mapped 63,000 buildings and completed 13 mapping projects requested by UNGRD. 

In Guatemala, HOT continued our engagement with the San José Poaquil community. It has gone 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. One youth participant, Carlos Ovalle, noted that, “These communal lands give us maize, coffee, firewood. They’re part of our history. Being part of this effort is a responsibility and a way to care for what’s ours.”

Links:

• HOT blog post on training in Sapecho
• Kaqchikel Maya protect their sacred forest with open mapping
• Defending territory with tradition and technology in Colombia

Mapping biodiversity in the Amazonia

Over the last three months, HOT led three pilot projects to capture drone imagery to support mapping of local biodiversity in three locations: La Paz-Baja California Sur (MX), Santo Domingo (DO), Bogotá (CO). In Colombia, community members captured drone imagery and created maps to monitor forest and fire risk. In Mexico, we worked with community members to collect information on mangroves and forests. Finally, in the Dominican Republic, community members and representatives from the National Statistics Office learned how to use participatory mapping to collect information about sargassum. Training focused on the use of drones and open technologies to generate geospatial data. Participants included representatives from civil society, academia, and public institutions. 

Mapping forests and other natural resources 

In May, HOT launched Amazonia mapping campaigns in Peru (Chachapoyas and Rioja) and Colombia (Villagarzón). Our partners include UNAULA (Colombia), Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (Bolivia), and Universidad Rafael Landívar (Guatemala).

Through this project, we will strengthen the capacity of indigenous communities to use participatory mapping to improve tropical forest ecosystems and climate change adaptation. HOT will train partners to use open source technologies to create maps that identify critical conservation areas, socio-environmental conflicts (such as deforestation, mining, illicit crops, and climate change), and community-led protection actions. We will also launch a communications campaign to influence public policy and attitudes toward resource conservation.

During May, the first field visits were made to conduct training on open mapping and to learn more about the areas to be mapped. So far, 116 volunteers have mapped 4,662 buildings and 51 Km of roads.  

"For us as part of the Cofradía, mapping is a very important issue because it helps make us known and gives greater visibility to the different points of interest in the community, such as the centers for Mayan ceremonies and also the sources of potable water."  Carlos Ovalle, Co-researcher and member of the Ancestral Cofradía of San José Poaquil, Guatemala.

Links:

• Mapping in the Amazonia project overview
• Mangove monitoring and conservation using drones
• Sargassum monitoring