The Earth Defenders Toolkit is a collaborative space for earth defenders and their allies. The Toolkit provides a growing collection of resources and training materials for communities on the frontlines of the struggle to defend critical ecosystems around the world, and community networks for users to connect and share their experiences.
The mission of the Earth Defenders Toolkit is to provide and promote approaches to using technology in a way that supports local autonomy and ownership over tools and data, and reduces reliance on outside support.
Terrastories is an application for communities to map, protect, and share stories about their land. It can be used by individuals or communities who want to connect audio or video content to places on a map.
The Explore Terrastories app allows you to access the maps of communities who have chosen to make a selection of their stories public.
We would like to thank the Digital Democracy team – Maria, Ben and Rudo – for supporting and sharing our project with their blog post about ”The Jingway Bird“ with Del Sol Quartet and The Last Hoisan Poets, which weaves music by Asian-American composers with powerful bilingual poetry by Genny Lim and Nellie Wong, using storytelling and mythology to deepen our understanding and awareness of the nature around us.
Mapping the Jingwei Bird story: A journey from China to San Francisco
Since time immemorial, stories have traveled along with humanity as both company and reminders of who we are and where we are from. So is the case of the Jingwei Bird, a traditional Chinese story that crossed the Pacific Ocean with the Chinese diaspora to a new homeland in the United States. Between 1910 and 1940, different hands carved this and other stories and poems into the walls of the detention barracks of the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco, where they have remained since. Now the stories have taken a leap into Explore Terrastories in the hands of The Last Hoisan Poets, Del Sol Quartet and Andi Wong, who share and honor the Chinese collective memory through their creative work.
“If you have to leave home and can’t take anything with you, what do you take? You take stories”, says Andi Wong, who was born in Sacramento in 1961 but has made San Francisco her home since 1988. Her creative journey as an art teacher and advocate has led her to a series of “serendipitous conversations” that later became collaborations and eventually built her path to find the intersection between the Jingwei Bird Story, Angel Island, and her family history.
“This process has been learning about my ancestry and discovering my relationship to the city. Many people in San Francisco don’t know the history of Angel Island, and I always find it kind of strange. It’s the largest natural island in the Bay and an integral part of the city. It was the entry point for most of the people of Chinese American ancestry in the United States”.
Resources
These Earth Defenders Toolkit resources are created or compiled to supplement earth defender community work.
- Mapeo icons generator
- GIS data resources for earth defenders
- Pedagogical resources for earth defenders
- Resources for presenting Earth Defenders Toolkit
The Earth Defenders Toolkit is a project of Digital Democracy and co-created by Alianza Ceibo, Amazon Conservation Team, Amazon Frontlines, ECA Amarakaeri, Forest Peoples Programme, Open Development Initiative, Raks Thai, and South Rupununi District Council.