If the room hums with high-energy mapmaking creativity, you’re at the Local-Global Green Map Roundtable. I joined the mapmakers this afternoon to discover Green Map System and how its inclusive principles can transform the way communities describe and affect their place on earth.
Green Map System’s Founding Director, Wendy Brawer, puts it this way: “Each Green Map is a guide and inventory, an authentic expression of community character, a record of change, and a perception-changing landscape of hope.”
Presentations by Mapa Verde Cuba (Green Map Cuba) facilitators Liana Bidart Cisneros and Dely Rodriguez Velazquez vividly demonstrated the value and power of the community mapping process.
Liana and Daly have combined their commitment to environmental education and green mapping principles to foster an impressive network of Cuban mapmakers.
The Mapa Verde Cuba Network brings popular education workshops to communities in every province in the country. Over 130 mapping projects have been undertaken by community groups highlighting impacts, biodiversity and neighborhood connections – all without electronic networks.
One of the Cuban mapmakers featured in the video ‘Drop by Drop’ explained, “Green Map has helped us to realize what we could not recognize before: that our previously isolated efforts could be integrated.”
(Photo: Liana and Dely are shown here with Beth Ferguson, mapmaker, translator and artist from Austin, TX.)
Check out www.greenmap.org and www.commongroundproject.ca for more mapping inspiration.
-Jean Macgregor
1 response so far ↓
Lori Sugden // May 8, 2008 at 1:22 am
What an inspiring workshop! It was energizing to hear stories about how mapping projects can create very concrete dialogue about shared community values and areas for change, both within and between diverse groups of people. Though printed maps are a valuable and often beautiful result, the process may be the most important part of the project. Green maps keep growing and changing– check out the UVic map at http://mapping.uvic.ca/ (Be sure to click on the bunny!)