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Geotracking the protests on Peru’s Bagua massacre

History never stops. It progresses ceaselessly day and night. Trying to stop it is like trying to stop Geography.
- Augusto Monterroso Bonilla

Background: In Peru there have been ongoing protests by indigenous groups contesting government policies they argue limit the economic development of the heavily indigenous Peruvian Amazon area. On June 5, the Peruvian government forces opened fire on the crowd, killing and wounding dozens (probably hundreds) of civilians in the city of Bagua. The massacre has drawn the attention, of among others, Human Rights Watch.

A Chile-based human and indigenous rights think-tank, Centro de Políticas Públicas y Derechos Indígenas (Center for Indigenous Public Policies and Rights – CEPPDI), has been tracking the protests denouncing the massacre using a newly developed maps section on their website.

Tools: Google Maps, stand-alone web site

How these tools are being used: Using the Google Maps API, the CEPPDI published a map noting protest locations world-wide, along with basic information and photos on individual protests, when available.

Outcome: The information has been regularly updated, and it shows, at first glance, a good density of protests in Latin America and Europe, but little movement in North America. This provides a clear geographic visualization of the impact (or lack thereof) of the massacre – an analysis that would have been otherwise much harder and time-consuming to make.

Analysis: Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are one of the most powerful tools available to understand and grasp geographic information, however, they were until recently very difficult to use.  Software costs and fees for cartographic files, as well as time consuming data entry made GIS prohibitively expensive. Google Maps (and the offline Google Earth) are certainly bringing the power of GIS to the masses, and the  CEPPDI’s effort is a great example of the power it brings to even relatively small organizations and relatively unknown causes to visualize geographic information.

The CEPPDI’s effort seems to be geared to continuing to develop further maps, as this map  is part of a section in their website dedicated to maps. I hope this effort is continued, and for different uses than tracking protest sites: in this case it would have been useful to get some overlays and information on the actual conflict area, with a close-up mapping and possible a mapped time line of events. All of this is straight-forward with Google Maps, and while listing protest sites is an important task, it is one that provides a narrow exploration of the subject, with as much effort in developing the content as it would have been for a deeper and broader look at the causes of the protests. They actually do this with the issue of mining concessions in Chile, the other map currently available in their website.

With the availability of Google Maps, any organization or movement that wants to enhance their impact online should consider doing mapping – ultimately, geographic information enhances the experience of the spectator, provides activists on the ground with a sense of proportion, and allows the cause to identify geographic patterns that might prove vital to the struggle.

Journalists, commentators, bloggers, and organizations like DigiActive should continually seek to enhance their geographic visualizations. CEPPDI’s effort is an interesting, if currently limited, step in that direction. After all, a well-labeled map is sometimes worth a thousand words.

Link to map:

• http://www.politicaspublicas.net/panel/mapas/geonoticias/309-mapa-protestas-por-bagua.html