Welcome
This website was created by GEO 599 graduate students from Oregon State University under the guidance of Professor Dawn Wright. The focus of this project is to create a website associated with Public Participation GIS community management.
Specifically this website includes:
- A thorough case study of the Kilum-Ijim Forest community management project in Cameroon, Africa
- A PPGIS forum towards encouragement of public participation through local communities
- A comprehensive collection of the Kilum-Ijim Forest community project information
- A brief introduction on PPGIS
As part of our project, we were to choose 3 aspects from the following list:
1) Propose a strategy for soliciting “local knowledge” about a given land management issue.
2) Describe the problem of distilling the spatial aspect of local knowledge.
3) Explain how, and how well, local knowledge may be represented in a GIS.
4) Exemplify a case in which local knowledge played a role in land use, resource allocation, or other planning decisions.
5) Speculate on how local knowledge concerning a decision to locate a controversial land use (e.g., retail megastore, strip mall, strip mine, or halfway house) may vary by community.
6) Explain how citizen participation improves local government planning processes and outcomes.
Addressing 3 of these goals of GEO 599:
1) Propose a strategy for soliciting “local knowledge” about a given land management issue:
A: Specifically for our case study, the local communities are the main stakeholders in forest project, therefore they act as the liaison between the local government and the conservation organizations. This is essential for soliciting “local knowledge” because the local communities are the reason why PPGIS can exist. They known the forest better than anyone, yet do not have the resources to protect it as much as outside organizations can. Thus, simple collaboration must exist between the “local knowledge” (the local communities) and the government and outside organizations. On the other side, outside organizations must help empower the local communities so that their knowledge can exist in more technologically sound mediums, such as GIS mapping of long and short term spatial and temporal variability in land use and land cover dynamics, climate data, and traditional exploitation of forests resources, local species, and human actives databases. Additionally, key personal from both the local communities and outside organzations must work together to ensure that both sides are learning from each other and can sustain that information. Specifically, that local communities are trained in PPGIS technologies and methods, while outside organizations learn about and utilize the “local knowledge”.
4) Exemplify a case in which local knowledge played a role in land use, resource allocation, or other planning decisions:
A: Based of the large scale of this case study, this question would be best answered through exploration of this website (History, Forest PPGIS and Partnerships).
6) Explain how citizen participation improves local government planning processes and outcomes
A: The local communities are the largest stakeholder of this project. As such, they improve local government planning because they are the largest source of information and management for the forest itself. In this case, the local communities are completely integrated with and dependent on the forest. Traditional management strategies help create a successful framework for local governments regulations and management.
