"Information is power but information sharing is even more powerful." With this statement, during his opening of the side event on blockchain at the LANDac encounter 2020, John Dean Markunas, Power of Chain Consultancy (PoC) cited me. I am now citing him back to explain what I meant.
India-Land and Development Conference (ILDC) – 2020 held in New Delhi from March 2 to 4 saw a lively debate on a wide range of issues relating to India’s land sector. More than 100 academicians, young researchers, activists and policy makers made their presentations in the conference spread across 34 thematic and two plenary sessions. More than 350 delegates participated in the event.
The land sector is in the throes of the Global Data Revolution, which, of course, has created opportunities as well as challenges. Government data portals, open access academic journals, community mapping and other citizen-generated data initiatives create possibilities for inclusive and open approaches to data collection and management. But how can these opportunities be leveraged for real change and benefits to citizens?
Conservation, said Aldo Leopold, is harmony between (wo)men and land. Land should justifiably figure not only into the conservation, but also in development debates, policy and discourses. Missing land rights and land tenure security can be costly for states, communities as well as local and global development.
With the inclusion of several land-related indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), land data collection and monitoring has reached an unprecedented momentum. There is a palpable positive drive within both global and local civil society to contribute to the official process through advocacy, data collection and international monitoring efforts. The broad consensus is that data and information are building blocks that support better informed decision and policy making at all levels.
In 2015 the UN agreed a new tranche of global sustainable development goals, signed up to by all member states and due to be achieved by 2030. Among them was a target to increase not only the proportion of adults with legally documented property rights, but also the proportion of adults who perceived their property rights to be secure, whether legally documented or not.
Online mapping platform MapHubs has recently launched a new service, MapHubs Forest, which combines automated forest change visualization and alerts with tools for making maps online, analyzing spatial data, producing reports and storing information in a secure online portal.