Indigenous women mappers for the environment
Challenge
Local Indigenous communities lack capacity and infrastructure to support the thousands of displaced people who travel through the Darién jungle every day, leaving a highly visible footprint. No study has examined the environmental impacts of this mass movement.
Solution
Engage Emberá-Wounaan Indigenous communities for a participatory mapping that will enable them to use digital tools to map places, services, and socioecological risks in their communities. Using the data, the communities can design a strategy for solid waste management.
Impact
Improved environmental mitigation measures, based on knowledge gathered and produced by local communities, to support human and environmental health. Enhanced capacity among community to use digital tools to advance local knowledge.
Project impact
Other information
Bajo Chiquito, in Panama's Darién region, is the first reception point for thousands of refugees crossing the jungle, putting enormous strain on the indigenous Emberá-Wounaan community that hosts them. Funded by the Data Innovation Fund, this project trained 10 indigenous women — the first in Panama — in advanced community mapping techniques, producing a bilingual Emberá/Spanish map that now guides community planning, environmental protection and humanitarian coordination. Building on community priorities, the project also delivered a solar-powered community nursery (irrigation, agricultural tools, water pumping system) for reforestation, a waste-management strategy and strategic partnerships with the University of Panama, the Ministry of Environment, UNICEF and WFP.
The initiative positioned UNHCR as a relevant actor on climate change and indigenous engagement, and offers a replicable, community-led model for environmental sustainability and refugee–host coexistence in remote, climate-vulnerable settings. Read more about this project in our webstory.