Being an earth defender is neither easy nor safe work. On many occasions, earth defenders are criminalized, threatened, and attacked by actors whose interests conflict with theirs. Nowadays, the use of digital tools has strengthened and supported many earth defense strategies, which usually involve collecting sensitive information, while bringing new challenges and risks to their […]

Since time immemorial, stories have traveled along with humanity as both company and reminders of who we are and where we are from. So is the case of the Jingwei Bird, a traditional Chinese story that crossed the Pacific Ocean with the Chinese diaspora to a new homeland in the United States. Between 1910 and […]

Communities worldwide have proven that access to connectivity can be undertaken as a common good through local organizing. These communications infrastructures are known as Community Networks (CN), and many are in the hands of Indigenous Peoples, who are building strategies to incorporate digital technologies into their long paths of autonomy, self-determination, and protection of their […]

For many of our grassroots partners, often Indigenous communities living in close relationship with the ecosystems of their ancestral territories, accessing the the Earth Defenders Toolkit (EDT) platform has been a challenge due to a lack of internet connectivity. To address this challenge, we created Kakawa, an offline version of the EDT, drawing on our […]

Consultation protocols can take multiple shapes and implications when it comes to Indigenous Peoples and the government or NGOs that aim to collaborate with them in their territories. Having experienced harmful and extractive outcomes from protocols designed by outsiders, the Wayana People in Suriname created their own, which is grounded in their traditional practices and […]

Communities around the world have been using Terrastories as a digital tool to document stories in video or audio forms while connecting them to places on a map. These efforts are often linked to deep, local, and internal community processes such as those of language revitalization, archiving, and land defense. Explore Terrastories, a freshly released […]

At a time when threats to Indigenous Peoples and their territories are increasing, creating spaces where they can share their stories, skills, and experiences is a powerful response and act of solidarity. This was the intention behind Earth Defenders Toolkit (EDT): a platform and network to support, articulate, and amplify the work of frontline environmental defenders across […]

Indigenous women play a key role in land defense strategies around the world and are critical guardians of global biodiversity. Last May, Digital Democracy held an Earth Defenders Gathering in the Ecuadorian Amazon, bringing together women from Indigenous territories around the world. The time they spent together sharing their strategies, and the friendships they cultivated, are […]

In May 2023, forty participants from eleven countries came together in the Ecuadorian Amazon to share strategies and build connections, at the “Earth Defenders Toolkit Gathering” convened by Digital Democracy. . Our original dream for this event was to create an opportunity for our local partners to meet each other and share their experiences of […]

Welcome Ben Tairea, the new Earth Defenders Toolkit  (EDT) Community Steward! We are thrilled to welcome Ben Tairea as the EDT Community Steward. Ben is Maori from the Cook Islands and has been a long-time inspiration to us. In 2018 he co-founded the Āhau tool, a tribal management and cultural archiving platform (a featured tool […]