Tribes Effectively Barred From Making High-Tech Maps

An article from 2007, but still very relevant today.

by Kelly Hearn, National Geographic News, April 26, 2007

Tribes in Southeast Asia are being kept from using the latest high-tech gadgets to help them win land rights. That’s the outcry from activist groups that have been helping indigenous communities mix computers and handheld navigation devices with paints, yarn, and cardboard to make simple but accurate three-dimensional terrain models. … But in Malaysia and the Philippines, the practice—dubbed participatory GIS—has sparked a legal backlash, activists say. For example, Philippine lawmakers have changed an existing law so that only officially recognized engineers “could do anything related to measuring space,” said Dave De Vera, director of the Philippine Association for Intercultural Development. …

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