<<< Home  rf3000, MSD MANGAGOY |
Patron: Professor David Bellamy OBE  |
CEO's Report
2005-6: the Fallow Years. Everyone is asking for Maps - for Ancestral Domain Claims, settling disputes; governance and devlopment, Law and Order, Environmental protection ... all sectors of society. Of course y0u can just go the the shop and buy a map. 400km round trip - three days and $50. And when you get it - it doesn't have things like, roads and villages, kilometre grid.
So we set out to gather all the available documentary and oral map information, verify it with modern technology, and compile it into online map series at differing scales which can be browsed and printed from any web-connected PC anywhere. With coordinate 'jumpss' and plotting on the Map view
Bernie Redman wrote the javascript for the online"Mapic" and included nice touches like a function to email a map view, search the documentation base. Still under development- but Well Done Bernie- and thanks!
The Team starts off with the Namria Map.
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It's a very nice bit of mapping - but there has been a bridge carrying the Highway over the river for over 50 years. No-one at Namria got round to adding it, even on last year's reprint. And unfortunately it's around 200 metres out on the referencing - i.e. exactly where it is, as .... |
Namria topographical map at 1:50,000 |
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But we don't help them: we only help them to help themselves. They want the maps? Then they'll have to make them. We'll just train their trainers and get the finance (Inshallah). The results of the Pilot/Feasibility demonstrate they can do it - and produce quality product that will " Stand up in Court ." First, the topographical content of the 1950 Namria map is 'traced' digitally as a 'layer'for the final product. |
Volunteer trainees from our Partner Groups
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There is a wealth of unpublished map information; the LC map has the authority by Statute, but if you want a copy, round trip to Butuan City 400km and see if DENR (a) have one and (b) will let you have it. We got this decayed copy from " a source". Scanned and referenced, the Land division boundaries are traced and added as a GIS-ready layer.
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The Public Land Subdivision and New Cadastral are another set of authoratative data - but it is not entirely compatible with the LC or Namria maps, and reconciling it with the Landsat requires much work. Even getting it and scanning it is a problem - they are on tracing paper or blueprint, 18 inches square, and only precariously available in the City - a 400km round trip away. As a result, Court cases about parcels of land continue for years - because no-one can really say exactly where the places are. |
PLS MAp c. 1930
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The logging company has been plundering the rainforest for fifty years, and were the only (closely guarded) source of map information. This came from 'a source'. |
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All the map sources make considerable erros in assigning names to such settlements as they do indicate. Tribepeople in conference with rf3000 provide the valuable placename and tribal activity and 'ethnohistoricity' data that with vegetation,land use, economic, mineralogy will provide a truly comprehensive map series. " Community-Based Resource Mapping ". Proposed by foreign consultants a few years ago, but never reached into this 'remote and far-flung region'. Until now. |
In Conference with Tribal Chieftains and Councils
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The core product is 'line' maps that are economical to print, at 250,000; 50,000 [as shown]; 10,000 and 2,000 for street and housing maps and even 1:400 for individual tree mapping. |
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The same layers are produced with an Atlas background which aids map reading by those unaccustomed to it. All the maps print out well at double scale - this example prints at 1:125,ooo- which makes excellent material for wallcharts, calendars &etc. The 50,000 line map printed at 1:25,000 is used for conferences and corrections. |
Atlas View at 1:250,000
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For some purposes the Elevation-Coloured is of more use that the hill-shaded Atlas view. And the Team can also produce Slope-Mapped version indicating the critical 18+ degrees that defines the Timberland. |
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To illustrate the accuracy, the Line map is also shown on top of the Landsat image and also the Namria Topographical base map. 
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Line Map on the Namria original
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This has fully occupied us during a prolonged and very wet rainy sason - now we wait for Dry season and a funding decision from DfID to map 18,000 square km of the four Provinces of Caraga Region here in Mindanao.
It's been very hard work, but very satisfying.Dry Season of Habagat approaches - so we will be out in the field gathering photo-documentation for profiles - Click here to see the format
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Mike Greenwood CEO rf3000, Mindanao, Philippines 25 Oct 2001
