An indigenous community in the Amazon learns basic land surveying to fix the errors of the past.
One glance at the shape of Itilla reveals that the person who determined the community’s oblong borders, was unaware of the realities of forest-dwelling communities in the Amazon. The Itilla reservation is an unusual 45 kilometers long and two kilometers wide. The territory looks more like a city block than the collective territory of a community in the Amazon.
Itilla, home to over 250 people, is located in Colombia on the northwestern edge of the vast Amazon rainforest. The community is accessed from San José de Guaviare, over 100 kilometers of dirt road followed by a boat ride down the Itilla river. Over 20 years ago, Amancio Yukuna, the community’s school teacher, was there when a public servant came to measure the Itilla reservation.
“The agent got out of the boat and walked a couple of kilometers. He took some photos and then turned around and got back in the boat and left,” Yukuna remembers.
Although the creation of the reservation was seen as an achievement, this territory of straight lines left out the most important aspects of their lives: the forest and everything within.
“Little by little we realized that we weren’t happy with the borders of our collective land,” explains Yakuna. “We are missing all the places we need to survive, where we hunt and fish and our sacred sites. There are no rivers or lagoons or any water, it’s all outside of our territory.”
A Forested Country
The majority of Colombia’s forests are concentrated in the Amazon and considered one of its most valuable resources. Today, these forests are threatened more than ever by the expansion of cattle ranching, illicit crop plantations, and illegal mining. All of these activities drive deforestation and put indigenous communities in a vulnerable position.
To push back against deforestation, in 2018, the Colombian government almost doubled the nearby Chiribiquete National Park, bringing its total area to 4.3 million hectares, making it the world’s largest protected area of tropical rainforest. With the expansion of Chiribiquete, the 8,000-hectare Itilla reservation was swallowed.
“In the past, it was all spoken. We simply told the government: ‘this is our territory’. But today, there is technology, and the information is organized and systematized. It’s more important than ever that the government recognize the entirety of our territory,” explains John Jairo García, Itilla’s current Captain, or political leader.
With support from USAID and Colombia’s mapping authority IGAC, the families of Itilla have embarked on a new way to interact with their territory: using GPS and viewing the map on a tablet.
The Intercultural Geography School is the first of its kind and a groundbreaking opportunity to involve indigenous communities in the mapping of their territories while transforming the way they view the forest around them. The school, which included cartography professionals from IGAC, equipped 40 members of the Itilla community with the knowledge and skills to collect land use information, to document their territory, and create a map that can be used to update the boundaries of their land.
Following a multi-day training on land surveying concepts and how to use GPS tablets, the novice land surveyors first documented the forty something homes and buildings in their community, including the maloca where the community gathers for traditional ceremonies. After that, in small teams, they ventured into the forest surrounding their community to document the natural and cultural resources that are vital for their survival and growth.
This is the first time that an indigenous community has carried out government-sanctioned land surveying and reflects a significant step towards more inclusive and participatory rural land administration. The activity is part of USAID’s commitment to the Colombian government to survey and update the boundaries of the expanded Chiribiquete National Park.
Eleonora Garcia and Hermes Londoño visit a nearby lagoon where the community often fishes.
“If rural communities learn mapping exercises in an effective way, they can understand why it is useful and how the community fits into their territory. Through mapping, communities can get to know their surroundings better and strengthen their spatial relationships.”
A Map of Instruments
Itilla’s community does not view the surrounding rivers and forests as natural resources. They prefer the word instruments. Under their vision of the natural world, the plants and animals of the forest and rivers have been offered to them as mere instruments that humans can use to connect with the spiritual universe of the Amazon.
Medicinal plants, forest food products, fish, and wild animals are all examples of these instruments. The bamboo-like plant caño de carrizo is used by the community to make the pan flute, which is used in traditional ceremonies and dances to communicate with ancestral spirits. Knowing where these plants grow and the animals inhabit is paramount to cultural preservation.
“Out there in the forest is where we find our sacred sites. Our elders have shown us where to go to find these sites and how to use the instruments they offer. We know the trails that the jaguars use, we know what fish are living in the lagoons and rivers,” explains Hermes Londoño, one of the community members who learned to map Itilla territory with a tablet and GPS.
Since launching the mapping initiative, Hermes and his neighbors have carried out expeditions, some during multiple days, to reach the farthest sites in the community’s territory.
In August 2024, the community finished the mapping exercise, logging hundreds of GPS coordinates, complete with descriptions and land use types. The completed map was printed and hung in the maloca for the community to view. For the majority of the community, it was the first time they had viewed their territory on a two-dimensional map that overlays sacred sites and land usage over the 2002 borders of the collective land rectangle.
“With this exercise, we are telling the government that we have formed our territory with our own team and we want to use these resources. Everybody is looking at this zone wanting to exploit the original forests, but these forests support our lives and are the basis of our cultural values. And now, we have documented it.” says Captain Garcia.
Under Captain Garcia’s leadership, they unanimously agreed to send this information to the IGAC and eventually to Colombia’s National Land Agency to expand the boundaries of their territory from the current 8,000 hectares to more than 102,000 hectares.
If they are successful, proper land use management and administration in protected areas like national parks could also consolidate indigenous land rights to disincentivize further deforestation. USAID bases its strategy on the logic that addressing land tenure issues and developing modern concepts of land administration with indigenous communities will lead to improved biodiversity conservation and open the doors to climate change mitigation.