IPLCs around the world have been creatively combining traditional knowledge with new technologies for participatory mapping, monitoring and information systems in support of local governance and planning. These community-based monitoring and information systems (CBMIS) are also used to increase accountability of public and private bodies in complying with social, environmental and human rights standards. Innovative tool kits to transfer technology to the community level and to allow communities to generate, handle and use information to manage their lands and resources are being developed. Using these tools, communities are better able to create their own community maps that serve as the basis for territorial management plans, environmental and social monitoring systems and the exploration of community-based sustainable livelihood options. Building the capacity of IPLCs to generate, control, manage, share and update their own data and information, through CBMIS, is a major contribution to achieving Target 19. CBMIS approaches and methods are increasingly acknowledged for their effectiveness and level of sophistication by independent academic institutions. Recent research to assess monitoring possibilities of indicators for the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and those of 11 other international environmental agreements concluded that of 186 indicators, 69 (37 per cent) required monitoring by professional scientists, whereas 117 (63 per cent) could involve community members as “citizen scientists”. The study also reported that promoting community-based and citizen-science approaches could significantly enrich monitoring progress related to global environmental conventions Similar analyses by the same research team showed that communities living in the world’s tropical forests can estimate an area’s carbon stock as effectively as hi-tech systems, and that local communities are able to monitor forest biomass up to the highest standards of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In many locations, IPLCs are generating quantitative data and qualitative information about local conditions unavailable from national and global statistics and remote sensing technologies. Similar community initiatives are happening in different countries around the world by members of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) Working Group on Indicators. The Working Group has made linkages with the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, the International Partnership on the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) and other global and national monitoring processes, with the aim of embedding indicators relevant for indigenous peoples in their work. The increasing deployment and sharing of tools and technologies managed and controlled directly by IPLCs is bridging the digital divide, and promoting greater access to and democratisation of data and information. Their contributions now extend to innovations in the use and creative application of information technologies which bridge local information and global data sets. IPLCs are thus participating in the contemporary data revolution in service of sustainable development.
