Awana Digital: Weaving Community, Technology and Environment

In this Smart Forests Radio episode, we speak with Jen Castro, co-director of Awana Digital (formerly Digital Democracy), about Mapeo, an open-source, offline-first toolset for forest monitoring and territory mapping. Jen discusses how Mapeo supports participatory data collection and sharing, reinforcing community sovereignty over their land and data. She also describes Mapeo’s transformative role in combating illegal mining, deforestation, and other threats to forests by facilitating evidence gathering, campaign launches, and policy changes. As Mapeo expands into a broader network of communities, tools, and data, Jen shares the vision for it to become self-sustaining and co-developed through peer learning. Towards the end of the episode, Jen explains how the organisation’s name change to Awana Digital (Awana means ‘to weave’ in Quechua) reflects its role of co-designing tools with frontline communities to protect human and environmental rights.

Interviewer: Jennifer Gabrys

Producer: Harry Murdoch

Image: Mapeo, https://docs.mapeo.app/