Voila une technologie utilisable par la communaute locale afin de limiter l'exploitation illegale.

GPS mapping helps forest people defend their lands
Date: 31/01/2008

As a carving knife dangles over the Congo rainforest, indigenous peoples are racing against time to protect their traditional lands from industrial-scale logging.

Forest peoples have for centuries safeguarded this Central African frontier – the second largest rainforest after the Amazon. Now they are producing maps to gain land rights so they can defend their territories against logging. With the maps, they are demonstrating what governments and the international community are ignoring –their presence on the land and the vital role they play in protecting rainforests.

Through community mapping, forest peoples are documenting their villages, sacred places, hunting grounds and fishing areas in the Congo rainforest. Using simple global positioning devices (GPS), they are creating accurate digitalised maps of their territories to present to government officials – the first step towards gaining land rights.

An area the size of France is at risk as loggers line up to wreak devastation … and plunge the millions of people whose lives depend on it into poverty. Along the way, they will be destroying one of the world's largest stores of carbon.

“We have been the stewards of these forests for many generations and to lose them now would be utterly devastating,” says Adrian Sinafasi, of the Conogolese organisation ‘Pygmy Dignity', one of our local partners.

“There is a rush for the trees,” according to Rene Ngongo, from another of our local partner organisations. “What is at stake is enormous. Two-thirds of the people in Congo depend on this forest to provide food, medicines and building materials. It is critical for the survival of the people and animals.”

The Rainforest Foundation is working with local organisations in more than 100 forest communities across the Congo Basin on mapping projects. By training local people in modern mapping techniques, we are helping hundreds of communities to protect their rainforests. Already some 3,000 sq km of vulnerable rainforest land has been documented, and we are aiming to map another 60,000 sq km.

“Area by area, forest communities are assembling a map illustrating their presence across the massive Congolese rainforest,” says Dr. Cath Long, Rainforest Foundation Programme Director. “It's a very powerful tool for protecting these threatened rainforests.”