Indigenous peoples and local communities are essential to preserving and protecting the world's lands and ecosystems. Because of their reliance on and intimate contact with the environment and its resources, they are among the first to experience the direct effects of climate change (UN, 2007). The importance and potential of including their knowledge and expertise are vital to developing and implementing national policies and agendas to support the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (IPCC AR6). 

This week, we’re focusing on the organizations that work with indigenous people using the NICFI Data Program, demonstrating their active roles in helping to safeguard the ecosystems that inhabit their lands and territories.

As a Level 2 user, the Nature Conservancy utilizes NICFI basemaps and daily imagery to correlate Sentinel-1 SAR data and detect/verify logging roads in Central Africa: this data and the corresponding tool support indigenous communities that are logging and sustainably utilizing their natural resources (NICFI General Partner Report November 2022). 

Fundación Gaia Amazonas, an NGO in Colombia, creates land use and land cover maps by NICFI basemaps. They also use the data to validate deforestation areas over the Colombian Amazon and monitor threats and pressures in the indigenous territories. Their work supports indigenous policies, and satellite imagery has greatly improved indigenous governance (NICFI User Survey March 2023).

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is working in Laos to improve the rights and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities in tropical forest countries. They the daily images and monthly basemaps to enhance the accuracy of mapping exercises for land tenure. They look for increasing transparency in land tenure and help to prevent outside interventions leading to land cover change (NICFI User Survey March 2023).

Stay tuned for more NICFI user stories coming up!