Earth Train

Cartography

(View our PDF, "Conservation Mapping in Panama")

An ancient practice and deep human curiosity, cartography is not only innately interesting, but also fundamental to our success in the Mamoní Valley and beyond. Boundaries have many meanings in a variety of contexts, and the cacaphony of conflicting interests and needs that exists in the real world is a keen reminder of this.

Earth Train has initiated numerous cartographic projects, including legal titling of settlers' private property within the Mamoní Valley, detailed topographic mapping of the Preserve with the help of the California Academy of Sciences, and - an exciting project still in development - detailed Google mapping of the Preserve using a drone airplane and Google's patented software. With this latter program, we hope to be emerging on Google's cutting edge of aerial landscape analysis, being one of the first projects to be able to catalog noticeable differences in surface vegetation and associate those differences with climatic and other such factors.

California Academy of Sciences

One of our key partners and valuable allies in the area of detailed cartography is the California Academy of Sciences. The Academy's Center for Biodiversity Research and Information has teamed up with Earth Train and Rainforest Capital, LLC to create a master plan for the Mamoní Valley Preserve, which involves several types of detailed maps and applied analytics to aid in decisions regarding the Preserve.

These tools will eventually help land-use managers, local Panamanians, and indigenous peoples identify biological conservation and ecological restoration priority areas, as well as establish a framework on which to base all sustainable community development and environmental conservation activities.