Seminar: Mapping for Rights and Conservation in Western Greece

Tracing the past and recording the present in the environmental conflict zone of the Inner Ionian Sea and adjacent lands.

Finding space for people, industry, and nature to coexist is a challenge. According to one school of thought, proper spatial planning and engagement can accommodate all, and executing draft or experimental plans may be temporarily acceptable. In the inner Ionian archipelago and adjacent coastlines of western Greece, governments, certain non-governmental organizations, and industries are attempting to employ such a practice with limited participation of local communities and limited inclusion of locally relevant data.

Terra Sylvestris has been working with the Geospatial Centroid towards an alternative approach. This begins with mapping historic land/water rights, baseline biodiversity studies, and indigenous and community conserved areas. It considers that not all current and planned uses can coexist and that draft plans are not supposed to be executed. This presentation will summarize the mapping work done so far, its impacts locally, and explore possibilities for future work and collaboration.