“We have found that participatory mappings create a very important opportunity to realize the situation of our environment. It allowed us to see what we have and what we have lost in terms of our natural resources. As a result we discussed and decided on what we should do to avert the situation. What we found more important is the process of the participatory mappings . As the process involves the youth and students, we had the opportunity to discuss with them and learn from each other. We know much about our local environment and the biodiversity as we learned from our fathers. But the tendency of learning traditional knowledge from elders is being gradually eroded with the expansion of modern education. The current generation tends to ignore local traditional knowledge and stick only to the modern education. We know this has its own disadvantages. The process of participatory mapping is a good opportunity to change this trend. We got the chance to teach what we learned from our fathers to our children. Now they have also realized that they were lacking what is very important for them. So we hope they will also do same to their children and, as such, the missing link will be reinstated.”

The foregoing is a statement by an elder from Oromia National Regional State, Bale Zone, Dinsho District, expressed on an International Conference on Participatory Mapping for Sustainable Life organized by Melca-Ethiopia and held on 15-16 November 2010 at Ghion Hotel, Addis Ababa.

Dr. Melaku Worede, who is an internationally acclaimed plant genetics researcher and winner of Alternative Nobel Prize, for "preserving Ethiopia's genetic wealth for the benefit for all humanity, opened the conference. In his opening speech Dr. Melaku, after welcoming the participants, said that the conference is a great opportunity to discuss issues related to environment and participatory mapping. He also thanked persons like Liz Hosken, who are international advocates of bio-diversity, and others who came from different parts of the world to be part of the conference. He stated, “I am sure all relevant issues will be discussed on this meeting at the time when the world is facing adversity in climate change emanating mainly from the erosion of bio-diversity at a global scale.”

The core objectives of the conference were primarily to create a common understanding and consensus on the value of participatory mapping for environmental protection and bio-cultural conservation among the various governmental sector offices, higher educational institutions, civic organizations and local community members. Secondly it is aimed to promote the use of participatory mappings for planning of development projects and natural resource management by government executive organs. It is also intended to support research and study to be conducted by universities on issues of environmental protection, sustainable natural resource utilization and preservation of cultural heritages. Further more it is aimed to induce the use of participatory mapping as an input for improvement of curriculum in primary and secondary schools.

Experiences regarding participatory mapping were presented on this conference and among the presenters who are internationally acclaimed in effective implementation of participatory mappings for sustainable life there was Georges Thierry, from Rainforest Foundation United Kingdom (RFFUK). Georges presented his experience on participatory mapping, especially in the Congo Basin. According to him participatory mappings are used in the Congo Basin countries to empower local communities in the Basin to claim their right of access to land and their sacred sites and negotiate with the government.

Regarding the significance of participatory mapping for healthy ecosystem Georges stated, among others, that it basically increases public confidence and participation in local decision-making and participatory planning of development projects and natural resource management. He stated that the importance of participatory mapping lies in that it allows the integration of indigenous knowledge in to the modern one. In such a way participatory mapping creates an opportunity to bring about sustainable life by learning from those who know how to protect what we want to protect.

Furthermore participatory mappings, as stated by Georges, are key instruments for managing conflicts pertaining to border issues and resource use and management by way of creating a forum for conflict resolution through discussion based on tangible observations. The other crucial significance of participatory mapping relates to its being a tool for intergenerational learning, community cohesion and self actualization, as stated by Georges.

Norma Zamora, from Colombia, presented another experience related to participatory mapping. Norma presented how participatory mapping is used for amendment of school curriculum and community based research in the Pira Parana region of Colombia. The mapping process, according to Norma, involves preparing ecological calendar of that particular community. In the ecological calendar the weather condition through out the year and the various activities and traditional celebrations based on the calendar are depicted. Based on the bio-cultural resource maps and the ecological maps of the community in the Pira Parana region began to demand amendment to, first, the school calendar and later to the curriculum of education in their region. As a result the government of Colombia accepted the demands from the community and the school calendar as well as the education curriculum for the Pira Parana region has been revised accordingly.

As related to this, Norma presented how participatory mappings are used, in Colombia, for community based local research. As presented, the participatory mappings would enable the local community identify what they have and what they lost as a resource, which problems they should address and how they should address them on a priority basis. To address the problems identified through mapping the community will be involved in a research that is fundamentally based on the indigenous knowledge but is also open to the modern knowledge. In such a way experts will support the community do the research based on their local knowledge and method of analysis to arrive at a relevant solution to the problem they themselves have identified.

An experience of participatory mapping in the Ethiopian context has also been presented by representatives of local community in Telecho found in Oromia Regional state, Finfinne special Zone, Welmera District and Horo Soba community found in Bale zone, Dinsho District of same region,.

A representative of the Telecho community, Mr. Mulugeta Tafa, said that the participatory sketch maps they have done in their locality, assisted by MELCA-Ethiopia, has helped them identify what they have and what they lost as a resource, the track they are on in terms of resource utilization and environmental protection as well as what they should do to curb the problem. He stated that “from the outset we have done three maps: the first one that shows the feature of our locality 30-40 years ago; the second which shows the current situation and a third one which shows the environment that we want to make after some time in the future.” In addition, he said that they have also had relevant experience sharing from other communities in Amhara and Tigray regions.

Mulugeta stated that it did not take them much time, after the preparation of the participatory mappings, to agree, as a community, on the issue of environmental protection and rehabilitation. He said, “ we immediately organized ourselves in to environmental protection and rehabilitation association, prepared an action plan and started to act in accordance with the plan.” He also stated that their association has been getting the required support from the local administrative organs through out all their activities.

In a similar manner another community representative from Bale zone, Dinsho woreda, Mr. Aman Mame, presented participatory mapping experiences in his locality.

Mr. Aman stated that all sectors of the community, including elders, religious leaders, the youth, local administrative organs, teachers and relevant government employees have participated on the preparation of the participatory sketch mapping of their locality. Mr. Aman also said that they prepared three maps: the first one shows what their area looked like 30-40 years ago, the second shows the current situation and the third one shows the feature of the locality they want or plan to make in the future. He explained that preparation of the map of the locality 30-40 years ago was mainly dominated by elders as the youth do not know the situation then, and the second one is prepared mainly by the youth guided by elders and the map of the future is prepared through the participation of all.

According to Mr. Aman, after the map of the past and that of the present were prepared, looking at the difference in the environmental set up between the two maps alarmed all members of the community. The first map showed hills and terrains totally covered by varieties of trees, rivers, springs, grasslands and different kinds of wild life species while many of these things are non existent on the map of the present. As members of the community were concerned of and alarmed by the situation, an intensive discussion that took long time was held before preparation of the future map. They agreed on the fact that every member of the community should take part in the rehabilitation of the environment to make their future map a reality. The other use of the mapping process, as stated by Mr. Aman, is that it created a forum on which the youth would learn traditional knowledge and environment related issues from elders. He said, “the youth who were with us on the mapping process do not know most of the rivers, trees and sacred sites that were mentioned by elders on the map of the past. Apart from learning these things, the youth regretted their loss, tried to analyze the causes for their loss and are motivated to reinstate them.”

Gete Aseffa, a representative of Gesse primary school, found in Bale Zone, Dinsho District, also presented a participatory mapping experience by school communities. Gete specially presented that the mapping by the school community, which also involved other members of the community, included preparation of an ecological calendar.

The eco-calendar, as presented by her, contains traditional knowledge based seasons in a year and the various activities and traditional celebrations that are undertaken within each season. At the end of the day they found out that there are five seasons in the traditional eco-calendar while there are only four seasons in the formal syllabus they teach in the schools. She said, “we realized the mismatch between the two eco-calendars happened as a result of the fact that the school syllabus is prepared based on the national situation which does not take the realities of a particular area in to account. So we tell our students that the eco-calendar, which is relevant to our area, is the one which is prepared by the community and they have to know both”

Representatives of the Venda community in South Africa also presented a similar mapping experience.

After presentation of mapping experiences in different countries, including Ethiopia, participants of the conference were divided in to groups and discussed on four thematic areas. The thematic areas were: the use of participatory mapping for environmental protection, the use of participatory mapping for education/learning, the use of participatory mapping for community based research and the use of participatory mapping for empowering community to exercise their constitutional rights, along with the challenges and ways of overcoming the challenges for each thematic area. This was followed by group presentation and discussion on points raised by each group.

Finally the conference was concluded by stating way forward regarding the use of participatory mappings for sustainable life and development.

More than 90 persons from federal and regional government relevant sectors, universities, research institutions, civic societies, local community representatives as well as representatives of NGOs from other countries have participated on the conference.