The Dimasa villages of the Barail range: mapping a forest people’s future

The Dimasa people of the Barail range are undertaking an unusual exercise: mapping their ancestral lands village by village, documenting forests, water sources, and the customary rules that govern them.

The maps are intended to give communities a say in the development projects that increasingly cross their hills.

Elders say the project is a form of memory-keeping: ‘If we do not draw the map, someone else will draw it for us.’