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Tag: land rights

Helping Secure Land Rights With LandMark

Blue Raster is proud to announce a major update to the LandMark interactive global mapping platform of community and indigenous lands. The original LandMark platform provided unprecedented information about the location of indigenous and community owned lands and the strength of legal protections available to these communities. The latest release builds upon that success by adding new functionality, upgrading back end processes to keep pace with latest technologies, and refreshing the design for an even better user experience. Working closely with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and a 13-member Steering Group, Blue Raster incorporated additional analysis capabilities, redesigned the map layout, added Python scripting to increase processing speeds, and integrated Amazon CloudFront to accelerate application performance.

LandMark Global Platform of Indigenous & Community Lands

We are very pleased to continue working with Blue Raster from the inception of LandMark in 2014 through this latest development phase. Their support has been instrumental in helping us towards our goal of becoming the go-to site for information on indigenous and community land rights globally.

— Katie Reytar, Senior Research Associate, WRI

The map’s new legend and navigation pane provide an intuitive and user-friendly way to explore indigenous & community land maps, country statistics, and legal security for these lands. The updated print function enables users to customize map views and export to a pdf, jpg, or png. Users can also generate location-specific reports by uploading shapefiles or drawing a polygon on the map. These reports include statistics on documentation, identity, and legal recognition of indigenous and community lands. Analysis is performed on the fly and the results can be exported for further study.

The ArcGIS JavaScript API, Highcharts, React JS, Python, and ES6 power the reports and mapping application. Be sure to visit the updated LandMark site today!

Peru Country Profile Page

Securing Land Rights for Indigenous Peoples and Communities

LandMark Global Platform of Indigenous and Community Lands

Blue Raster partnered with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and a 13 member Steering Group to create LandMark, the first-ever attempt to build a global repository of community land rights data. Launched on November 10, the LandMark website is the world’s first interactive global platform to map these lands.

According to WRI, up to 65% of land in the world is held by indigenous peoples and local communities, but only 10% is legally recognized as belonging to them. LandMark aims to help these communities publicly document their land boundaries, particularly in countries where there are no systems currently in place to do so.

LandMark

Blue Raster created the site using WordPress, ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS for Server, and the JavaScript API.

“Blue Raster has been a great asset to the World Resources Institute and our partner institutions in designing and developing the LandMark mapping platform. Especially valuable was their proficiency in creating a flexible product with a big-picture view towards future growth and development, as LandMark is a project that is constantly evolving,” said Katie Reytar, Senior Research Associate at WRI.

The site allows users to explore maps at both the community and national level, with the goal of helping key audiences including:

LandmarkOn-iPhone-v2LandmarkOn-iPhoneCompanies who are interested in identifying areas for potential investments and want to reduce company risk and costs associated with acquiring contested land.

Community members and groups supporting them who are looking for a platform to proactively document their land publicly.

Governments, to better recognize community land rights and encourage fellow public officials to take action based on examples of other nations.

General public, to gain a better awareness of the extent of land rights issues worldwide.

To learn more about the project and see the platform in action, check out WRI’s project page.