What is Community Mapping?

• Community mapping is a growing international grassroots movement where mapping starts with asking people what they value about where they live.
• A community green map becomes a map of a community’s home, showing the connections between where we live, the food we grow and eat, the things we do, and the land we live on.
• What becomes clear is that everything is vitally interconnected. Nature doesn’t start at the city limits but is under people’s feet, connecting through backyard vegetable gardens, playgrounds, farmer’s fields and in the sky overhead.
• With the help of the community the Cowichan Land Trust has undertaken community mapping that identifies sensitive ecological areas needing protection and special consideration in development and community planning.

Goals of the Green Mapping Project

• The goal of the Cowichan Valley Green Mapping Project has been two-fold: to bring people together to talk about their connections to this special land – the Cowichan Valley, and to create a map which is a collective expression of what is important to people in the Cowichan Valley.
• The map is a resource for learning about and helping to protect sensitive habitats and threatened ecologies. Mapping workshops have been places to form local stewardship groups and places to strengthen participation within and among existing groups.
• Groups who want to protect and restore ecological features can continue to use community mapping as a way to organize, plan and initiate action.