The Land Observatory is a pilot project by some partners of the Land Matrix, designed to provide greater context and deeper insight on land deals, from a more local perspective.

We are co-creating software with partner organizations in pilot countries that will allow for them to

• generate greater spatial context for land deals
• make possible deeper investigation of the actors involved
• increase citizen participation, crowdsource and ground-truth data
• locally manage data on land deals

We are piloting this project in five countries - Cambodia, Laos, Madagascar, Peru and Tanzania, with civil society partners and governments who will work to open government data, crowdsource and help customize local observatories using our software.

The project is not merely technical, we are accompanying partners as they test different crowdsourcing strategies. Partners and their extended networks play a crucial role in bringing the online information to the real world, and back again.

Updated information on land will benefit citizens, but also governments and companies interested in sustainability.