FoxHershockMappingCommunities

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BUILDING LOCAL CAPACITY IN USING SIT FOR NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN EAST SUMBA, INDONESIA as successful in encouraging them to “tell their own stories” through “their own maps.” The problem emerged from the fact that these exercises emphasized two general areas: 1) learning how to produce maps, and 2) ensuring that community members participated in documenting information embedded in the maps. Less attention, however, was given to map socialization, the process of learning how to use maps or map making for addressing tangible concerns of the community. Villagers were only interested in joining participatory mapping activities if they felt these activities would ultimately benefit them. While activities using sketch maps could engage villagers in meaningful conversations regarding the use of maps and map-making to advance their practical needs (e.g. field planting, negotiation with neighboring farmers), participatory mapping exercises undertaken by the project could not achieve the same result for two reasons. First, it was difficult for villagers to conceive of the ways that maps could benefit them when they struggled to understand technical maps. Second, these “technical” maps were intended to be used as tools for negotiation with the state, and the process of such negotiations was both abstract and removed from the villagers' realm. At the end of the project, in spite of participatory mapping activities that were conducted in fifteen villages, the conceptual understanding of villagers as to how the maps can assist them in managing their resources remained limited. Training and Organizational Dynamics While a short training session might be sufficient to introduce NGO staff and community members to the use of simple SIT tools such as compasses, measuring tapes, and GPS units, understanding how to plot and analyze the data is more complex and therefore requires more time. Digital data processing requires not only more skills and analytical capability, but also the capacity to work with multiple sources of data, to choose from a variety of software, and to keep up with the (rapid) development of computing technology. The consortium's strategy was therefore to focus on developing the capacity of a few consortium staff members and to have external supports available for periodic consultation or outsourcing. Yet it soon became apparent that even this selective strategy could not keep up with the development of GIS technology and the growing market segmentation among the various GIS software producers. To illustrate, in 1996 a WWF staff member attended basic GIS training in Samarinda that was organized by the Idrisi software project of Clark University. In this training, participants learned how GIS could help community-mapping processes. It included developing skills to use field data as inputs to GIS, preparing and printing graphical representations, and producing final maps using Idrisi. Unfortunately, it turned out that Idrisi GIS software was not widely used in Indonesia, therefore limiting the capacity of this individual for sharing data or technical support. In 1998 staff members from two organizations that belonged to the consortium attended a six-week GIS and remote sensing training course at the East West Center in Honolulu, Hawai'i. This was followed by a series of field mapping exercises held in Nusa Tenggara involving the same trainer, trainees, and a few other people. 2 The objectives of the exercises were to establish benchmarks, to map village boundaries, and to map land cover using a combination of satellite images and field data obtained from participatory mapping. These activities went well and produced a series of maps showing village boundaries and land covers. But the strategy of focusing capacity development on a few key individuals is vulnerable to arbitrary personnel changes, which can arise from personality conflicts or from personal decisions. In this case, a key staff member who had received intensive GIS training in Honolulu in 1998 decided to leave his organization in 1999. The other trained staff member received a promotion to lead a provincial branch of his international NGO and could not be involved in mapping activities anymore. Other locally trained staff members who had become proficient in GIS analysis also 111
left their organizations within a year. Further local training was also done during mapping activities that were led by mapping consultants and trainers, but they yielded similar results. By 2003, after five years of training efforts, the consortium still did not have local staff members who were capable of acquiring and analyzing spatial information. Many trainees were also not prepared for the physical demands imposed by mapping activities, such as traversing rough terrain during field surveys. GIS analysis training was complicated by the fact that GIS infrastructure at the local level was not well established. When the project began, digital data with which to create base maps were virtually non-existent and consequently resulted in the need to manually digitize maps, a time consuming activity. Many staff members who had been excited about the potential of GIS tools in helping community mapping came away disheartened by the technical hurdles. Developing local capacity through organizing training sessions faced another challenge related to the organizational culture of NGOs in Indonesia. For most NGO staff members, training is considered a reward for his or her service to the organization. Moreover, if a training session is conducted outside the province (or outside the country), the opportunity is highly coveted. Internal organizational politics could supersede practical rationality in deciding who should attend the training sessions. As a result, trainees attending these sessions might not be the most suitable candidates from the targeted organizations, and would not be able to make full use of their newly acquired skills. In the case of developing skills to run a GIS lab, training might involve a number of sessions to cover various topics. If an organization was overly concerned about spreading training opportunities among its staff members, a discontinuous transfer of knowledge and skills among several staff members could result, with no one person capable of managing all aspects. Personnel skilled in spatial information analysis are still relatively scarce in Indonesia. As participatory mapping approaches become popular, demand for such personnel increases. Organizations advocating environmental and community interests compete not only with each other but also with private mapping consultants, driving up the salary structure of mapping and GIS technicians. Such a situation leads to tensions within NGOs, as well as relatively fast turnover of spatial information specialists. Building A Regional SIT Center When the project began in 1997, the equipment and software necessary for managing spatial information were relatively expensive. Computers capable of storing and processing large amounts of data were costly. A digitizer table was indispensable since digital data were neither readily available nor economical. While navigational GPS units were becoming common, the selective accuracy (SA) standard imposed by the United States only allowed accuracy of up to one hundred meters in these units, which was not sufficient for mapping ancestral land. GPS units that allowed differential correction could yield accuracy within one meter but were much more costly than the navigational GPS units. 3 Remotely sensed images such as those from Landsat TM were expensive and only available in digital tape format, necessitating a specialized tape drive that was available at only a few institutions in Indonesia. The high price of plotters precluded many GIS facilities from owning one. Added together, the necessary costs to establish a GIS lab were generally out of reach for most NGOs in Indonesia. Meanwhile, although it was necessary to have access to all this equipment, in most cases the equipment would not be fully utilized all the time. For example, once digitizing work was completed, the digitizer would not be used for an extended period of time. For these reasons, the idea of sharing a SIT facility among several members of the consortium was deemed sensible. The grant from the Ford Foundation provided funds to establish a small regional SIT facility within one of the member organizations. 4 But the problem of maintaining a 112
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MAPPINGCOMMUNITIES ETHICS, VALUES,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS vi vii viii 1 11
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ACRONYMS AMA: adaptive management a
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INTRODUCTION MAPPING POWER: IRONIC
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COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PARTICIPATORY
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APPENDIX I: FORMAL INTERVIEWS AND G
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APPENDIX II: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND
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land-use plans in various stages of
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egan to argue that these areas were
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conflicts. The NTFP also assists vi
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illegal logging activities and to s
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property is defined according to th
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the real outside pressure has not y
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7. How well do NTFP staff members u
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further and further away from areas
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Methods Projecting aerial photograp
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS The underlying q
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In Samout Krom Village, villagers h
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who have not attended the sketch ma
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concrete sensorial experiences much
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CONCLUSION Based on mapping researc
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BACKGROUND According to the MIGIS p
Page 67 and 68: many schools, resulting in the clos
Page 69 and 70: members, the Beima, and villagers'
Page 71 and 72: tree cutting and animal grazing in
Page 73 and 74: the bio-gas project that was implem
Page 75 and 76: During the evaluation process we al
Page 77 and 78: 1 Mr. Zhao Yaqiao, Ms. Wu Chengrui,
Page 79 and 80: Events / Dates Bio-gas systems cons
Page 81 and 82: communities to take advantage of SI
Page 83 and 84: Hayfork based NGO focused on commun
Page 85 and 86: likely to be more knowledgeable abo
Page 87 and 88: planning processes, especially with
Page 89 and 90: and implement projects. Some NGOs a
Page 91 and 92: CONCLUSIONS SIT training provides p
Page 93 and 94: REFERENCES California Fire Safe Cou
Page 95 and 96: map strengthened the community's cl
Page 97 and 98: 1994 and 1995 with community mapper
Page 99 and 100: to the mapping. These disagreements
Page 101 and 102: CONCLUSIONS For too long now, the D
Page 103 and 104: APPENDIX B The table below lists th
Page 105 and 106: uncritically or simply misused. As
Page 107 and 108: However, the equipment acquired for
Page 109 and 110: degrees in social sciences, agricul
Page 111 and 112: photo: Martin Hardiono photo: Marti
Page 113 and 114: REFERENCES Herlihy, P. H., and G. K
Page 115 and 116: eserve boundaries, develop a common
Page 117: NGO that focused on facilitating co
Page 121 and 122: eadily use the available computer a
Page 123 and 124: local capacity both in terms of ski
Page 125: Nusa Tenggara Community Development
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