Indigenous Peoples Monitoring Forests: Latest Tech, Practices, Examples

Indigenous Peoples (IPs) are essential for biodiversity conservation, yet they face ongoing rights violations and displacement worldwide. Despite their crucial role as custodians of nature, they often struggle to access resources and face challenges in protecting their lands and livelihoods.

To address these issues, the UNDP Equator Initiative has partnered with organizations like Conservation Metrics, Digital Democracy, and FAO to develop a self-paced course on forest monitoring and mapping tools. This course aims to provide Indigenous communities with information on monitoring and mapping tools to support their management of forests, while also promoting data management, governance, and sovereignty.

In this side event, they will launch the registration for the virtual, self-paced course ‘Introduction to Forest Monitoring and Mapping Tools for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities‘ powered by the UNDP Learning for Nature platform. They will present the modules and lessons of the course for feedback; hear from partners who have been using monitoring and mapping tools on the ground; and  highlight some of the tools featured in the course.