Methods for community-level data
The Community level data layers provide sub-national geographic information on the boundaries of indigenous or community lands, indicative areas of indigenous and community lands rights, and/or natural resource rights. They include maps and data that are publicly available as well as information contributed to the platform by individuals and organizations with the permission of the concerned Indigenous Peoples and communities.
Photo credit: Pamela Huber - Unsplash
The data displayed on LandMark is not complete – experts believe that 50% or more of the world’s land is held or used by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, while LandMark displays a fraction of this. The LandMark team is involved in a collaborative and on-going effort to collect available maps of the boundaries of indigenous and community lands. The absence of data, however, does not indicate the absence of indigenous or community land (see Data Completeness). If you or your organization can help fill in the gaps in coverage, please contact us.
There are three categories of community-level data displayed on LandMark: 1) Indigenous and Community Land Maps; (2) Indicative Areas of Indigenous and Community Land Rights; and 3) Indigenous and Community Natural Resource Rights. More detail on each layer is provided below.
Photo credit: LandMark
Indigenous Peoples' Lands & Territories and Local Community Lands
The Indigenous Peoples' Lands & Territories and Local Community Lands data represent the boundaries of indigenous and community lands (polygon data) or, when boundaries are not available, point data showing the location of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and/or the land that they occupy and use. Upon receipt, the data are processed by the LandMark team to conform to a universal standard. This includes a common projection for the web map (WGS1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere) as well as a globally-consistent typology based on the identity and legal status of each indigenous and community land.
The following definitions apply for the purposes of categorizing, symbolizing, and displaying community level data on LandMark:
Additional descriptive information is available for each indigenous or community land by clicking on the geographic feature in the interactive map. The information displayed in the attribute table is as follows:
Attribute table for Indigenous and Community lands
The name of the selected indigenous or community land
The country in which the indigenous or community land is located.
How the community self-identifies: As Indigenous Peoples or as non-indigenous Local Community. When unclear or unknown, the land is presented as community land.
Recognition status by government in law or decree (i.e., acknowledged or not acknowledged by government)
The documentation status of the land. For land that is acknowledged by government, there are two documentation status categories (see typology definitions above):
- Documented
- Not documented
For indigenous or community lands that are not acknowledged by government, there are two documentation status categories:
- Held or used with formal land claim submitted
- Held or used under customary tenure (without formal land claim submitted)
The date field displays the year that the land attained the specified documentation status (if known).
Additional information to clarify the recognition or documentation status beyond the established typology.
The categorical name that the local state gives to this type of indigenous or community land? (e.g., reservation, indigenous territory, customary lands).
The names of the principal ethnic groups or communities that reside on the indigenous or community land.
The number of people that normally reside on the indigenous or community land. Includes the source and date of the estimate or census.
The official area of the indigenous or community land, as stated in the formal documents (only applies to formally recognized lands). And the area of the land as calculated in GIS. All areas are in hectares.
The scale at which the land data were collected or georeferenced.
The method used to acquire the geographic indigenous or community land data (e.g., hand-held GPS, transcribed from land title).
The individual or organization that created the data that are shown on LandMark. May or may not be the same as the data contributor. Includes the date when the data were created or last edited.
The individual or organization provided the data to LandMark. If the data were downloaded from a publicly accessible website, the contributor is listed as "publicly available".
A website link to more detailed information about the dataset or source institution.
Additional notes to explain or clarify any information provided about the indigenous or community land.
Indicative Areas of Indigenous and Community Land Rights
The Indicative Areas of Indigenous and Community Land Rights layer shows areas where indigenous and community lands likely exist but the data on the precise delimitation, recognition and/or documentation status of these are not available at this time. In all cases, these are areas where Indigenous Peoples’ or local communities’ lands are known to exist, but available attribute or precise locational information is insufficient for their inclusion in the data layers on Indigenous and Community Land Maps or Indigenous and Community Natural Resource Rights. The indicative data may be polygons or points. The methods for mapping indicative areas fall into four general categories: (1) administrative areas with known presence of Indigenous Peoples and/or local communities (e.g., India); (2) participatory mapping of Indigenous Peoples’ presence (e.g., Mesoamerica); (3) for countries where there are laws in place that grant communal control to the majority of national lands, an exclusionary approach was taken to estimate which lands are likely not under communal control, with the assumption that remaining lands would be community held (e.g., Papua New Guinea, countries of the Sahel); or (4) working with local experts to identify which lands or categories of land uses are under communal control (e.g., Congo Basin). More information on methods and sources is available in the attribute table of the Indicative data layer and in the table of Data Providers.
Indigenous and Community Natural Resource Rights
The Areas of Indigenous and Community Natural Resources Rights data layer displays locations where community groups have rights to forests to harvest various products, rights to wildlife for hunting and fishing, or rights to pasture for herding and grazing. The data are displayed according to the category of natural resource right. The area of natural resource rights may be within existing Indigenous and local community lands or on lands held by other entities, such as by the state or private owners. Information on sources is available in the attribute table of the Natural Resource Rights data layer and in the table of Data Providers.