Cadasta is thrilled to have been featured in the latest edition of the Georgetown University Environmental Law Review in an article authored by Kirk Talbott, Sera Song, and Janis Alcorn titled ‘Edith Brown Weiss as a Pathfinder: Strengthening Property Rights and Community-Based Resource Governance for Indigenous Peoples Worldwide’. The piece shines a light on the significant contributions of American lawyer and legal scholar, Edith Brown Weiss, and her scholarship in international environmental law with regard to property rights and resource governance. The article highlights how Cadasta’s technology and participatory, bottom-up approach to land documentation and mapping are also advancing land rights for Indigenous and community lands.
Edith Brown Weiss pioneered creative strategies for governing global natural resources to avoid impending local and global ecological catastrophes. Her path-breaking concept of “Intergenerational Equity” addresses the depletion and degradation of resources and the discriminatory access to resources passed on from previous generations. As noted by the authors, Weiss’ work has strengthened environmental laws and policies while also improving protection of human and indigenous rights.
Similarly, recent advances in digital technologies over the past twenty years—especially in satellite based Global Positioning Systems (“GPS”)—have opened new paths for protecting indigenous rights. GPS-based tools, such as those offered by Cadasta, have helped democratize the mapping process, allowing individuals and communities to produce local maps, community land-use plans, topographical charts, community survey data, and other documents rich with data critical to community decision-making.
In this context, the authors highlight the significance of how Cadasta brings mapping and documentation processes to another level by aligning local data collection with national land data standards and engaging key stakeholders such as land administration agencies. They state, “This alignment of local information with national land administration systems stands in concert with Professor Brown Weiss’s kaleidoscopic approach, which noted the considerable potential of technology to bring together different entities to enforce and implement international legal standards. Cadasta ensures that local maps can be integrated into other political or technical maps to fit demands in any country to preserve the long-term value of data gathering.”
The full article is available on the Georgetown Environmental Law Review website here.
About Cadasta Foundation:
Founded in 2015, Cadasta Foundation is a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit that develops and promotes the use of simple digital tools and technology to help partners efficiently document, analyze, store, and share critical land and resource rights information. By creating an accessible digital record of land, property, and resource rights, we help empower individuals, communities, organizations, governments, and businesses with the information they need to make data-driven decisions and put vulnerable communities and their needs on the map.
For more information about Cadasta’s work visit: https://145944a268.nxcli.io/
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- * Kirk Talbott is a visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute, Sera Song works at George Washington University Law School, LLM in International Environmental Law, and Janis Alcorn is an Adjunct Professor at University of Manitoba, Canada.