Cartography as a Tool for Indigenous Governance in the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory

Written on 07 January 2026. Posted in News

CATALINA RIVADENEIRA AND LEONARDO TAMBURINI FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

For Indigenous Peoples, territory is not merely a physical space; it is a fundamental element that shapes their culture. To enhance territorial management, the Legal and Social Support Organisation (ORE) collaborates with TIM authorities, providing georeferenced information on their shared natural resources, forest conservation, and monitoring and control systems. These maps combine ancestral knowledge with modern technology, creating a dynamic representation that honours traditions while responding to contemporary needs.

Throughout history, Indigenous Peoples have developed profound knowledge of their territories without relying on modern cartographic tools. They have embedded routes, sites, and sacred places into collective memory through mental maps passed down from generation to generation. This knowledge is based on the observation of stars, changes in the landscape, animal trails, and natural elements such as rivers, mountains, trees, and rocks. As territorial recognition is fundamental to exercising their autonomy, maps produced by the communities themselves enable them to make their ancestral presence visible, to organise their spaces and activities, and protect their culture and natural resources.

However, today the livelihoods of most communities are threatened by the overexploitation of natural resources, agricultural expansion, road construction, infrastructure projects, and other industrial-scale activities that alter their environments. These extractive projects jeopardise their survival, making it essential to have tools that strengthen governance and autonomy in the defence of their territories and natural resources.

The experience we wish to share in this article is a collaborative work carried out by the authorities of the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory (TIM): the Autonomous Indigenous Government, the Subcentral of Indigenous Councils, and the Subcentral of Women. This synergy, combined ancestral knowledge with new mapping technologies, resulted in the creation of an Atlas and a set of cartographic tools designed to optimise governance and reinforce autonomy.

A Territory Where Five Peoples Coexist

The Multiethnic Indigenous Territory is located in the Bolivian Amazon, in the so-called Llanos de Mojos—the third most important seasonally flooded savannah in South America. The TIM was officially recognised as an Indigenous territory by Supreme Decree 22,611, following the first march led by the Indigenous Peoples of the Lowlands in 1990. It is called “Multiethnic” because the territory comprises 28 communities belonging to five Indigenous Peoples: Mojeño Ignaciano, Mojeño Trinitario, Movima, Yuracaré, and T’simane. In this way, TIM exemplifies harmonious coexistence between diverse ethnic groups and nature.

In 2010, a Gathering of Corregidores (the highest territorial decision-making body) decided to begin establishing an autonomous government in the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory, as provided for in the Political Constitution of the State. The complex process began with fulfilling multiple requirements, including participatory drafting and approval, at several levels, of a statute that sets out the rules of the new Indigenous government. What makes the TIM Indigenous Autonomy unique is that it is established over the entirety of the ancestral territory titled as collective lands, unlike the other eight recognised Indigenous autonomies to date, whose territorial jurisdictions correspond only to former municipal boundaries.

After 13 years of lengthy procedures led by the Subcentral of Indigenous Councils and the Subcentral of Women, autonomy was finally achieved on 1 March 2023 with the adoption of Law No. 1497, which established the Territorial Unit of the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory (TIM). In November of the same year authorities that formed the new Autonomous Indigenous Government officially took office.

Since 2020, the Legal and Social Support Organisation (ORE) has been collaborating with TIM authorities, providing support in the management of shared natural resources, forest conservation, and monitoring and control systems. Within this framework of joint work with Indigenous organisations and authorities, environmental, geographic, demographic, and cultural maps have been produced. By using “talking maps” and satellite imagery, sites of importance to each community and people have been georeferenced, with their various uses across the territory carefully documented.

The Use of Cartography in TIM Governance

This initiative has enabled the creation of an Atlas of the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory, providing essential tools for territorial and environmental management. The atlas offers detailed information about the “Territorial Unit,” including its location, area, boundaries, and constituent communities, as well as physical, geological, and hydrographic features. In addition, through extensive collaboration with communities, social data has been updated, covering access to health and education at all levels, alongside an assessment of strengths and weaknesses to support the exercise of these fundamental human rights.

The atlas functions as both a visual and political instrument, designed not only to record land use and distribution but also to strengthen cultural identity and preserve historical memory. The maps combine ancestral knowledge with modern technologies, producing a dynamic representation that respects traditions while addressing contemporary needs. They also feature a historical map, narrated by the communities, showing the location of Jesuit reductions established in the 1600s. Furthermore, the atlas identifies areas that, centuries later, were exploited by logging companies but have now been restored to the Indigenous Peoples of Mojos.

This historical and cultural mapping holds great significance in dual aspects of territorial governance. Internal governance entails taking control of one’s own affairs: the effective exercise of collective rights concerning territorial management, the functioning of local institutions, systems for distributing resource benefits, inter-community agreements, and the resolution of internal conflicts. External governance, on the other hand, involves legitimising these representative structures to outside actors, strengthening them to develop coherent policies and engage effectively with those seeking to influence decision-making within the territory.

Access to cartographic information is not limited to a physical atlas. Interactive maps have also been developed and are accessible via the TIM governance website. This tool allows authorities, community members, students, and the general public to create their own maps online through an intuitive geo-visualiser, offering layers of geographic, environmental, and social data. Users can view territorial boundaries while monitoring hotspots in real time—a feature that proves crucial during fire season in August, September, and October, at the end of the dry season.

A Conservation Area that Strengthens Culture

One key aspect of territorial management and governance was the development of zoning through a long and participatory process with communities. Six land-use zones were mapped: bodies of water, pampas, savannahs, grazing land, agricultural land, forests for traditional use, and a conservation area. Building on this zoning, on 26 November 2022, during a Gathering of Corregidores, the Subcentral of Indigenous Councils and the Subcentral of Women proposed the creation of the “Loma Santa Conservation Area.”

During the Jesuit reductions, the ancestral inhabitants of Gran Mojos moved in search of an ideal location deep in the forest—free from disease and human exploitation, where peace and abundant food could be found. They named this place “Loma Santa.” Centuries later, on 3 October 2024, the Autonomous Indigenous Government of TIM enacted Autonomous Law No. 003/2024, establishing a Conservation Area of Historical, Cultural, Social, and Spiritual Heritage under the name “Loma Santa,” thereby formalising the decision taken by the Gathering of Corregidores two years earlier.

This conservation area is the first Indigenous protected area created in the Bolivian Amazon. Cartography shows that “Loma Santa” is part of an important conservation mosaic linking protected areas and Indigenous territories and is connected to the extensive Vilcabamba-Amboró biodiversity corridor, which stretches across the central region of the country and extends into Peru. The TIM’s location is also highlighted as part of a globally significant wetland, the RAMSAR Site “Río Matos.”

Cartography: A Tool for Indigenous Autonomy

In recent years, TIM has faced various threats, ranging from the exploitation of its natural resources to climate-related events such as fires and floods. Access to accurate and up-to-date information allows timely decision-making and the protection of the territory. In response to these challenges, a Territorial Monitoring and Control System has been developed to safeguard common natural resources, monitor environmental changes, and strengthen Indigenous governance in the face of external pressures.

Territorial mapping by the Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia represents an act of recovery and reaffirmation of the lands they have traditionally inhabited. For decades, resource exploitation has caused the displacement and social and cultural disruption of these communities. In this sense, the process of land titling has sought, to some extent, to repair that damage.

Cartographic tools, therefore, are merely static representations of geographic reality but are dynamic expressions of historical events and political decisions made by Indigenous Peoples. They aim to illustrate situations, disseminate information, and reaffirm the rights of Indigenous Peoples over their territory, its biodiversity, and other elements of the natural environment.

Catalina Rivadeneira Canedo is in charge of the Amazon region at Oré, a biologist from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Ecology from the University of Florida. She has worked for 15 years on biodiversity conservation projects in Bolivia.

Leonardo Tamburini is Executive Director of ORÉ – Legal and Social Support Organisation, a lawyer from the Università degli Studi di Macerata (Italy), and holds a Master’s in Indigenous Rights and Development from the Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno (Bolivia).

Tags: Indigenous Debates