Women from indigenous communities in Odisha’s Koraput district are mapping their commons — forests, streams, grazing land, and other shared resources they depend on daily.

They’re doing this because these commons are disappearing. Water sources are drying up, forest cover is thinning, and there’s no clear record of what existed, what’s already lost, or how the change happened.

So they went looking for answers. They pulled government records from the 1960s and walked the land, documenting what exists today. The findings are stark: common areas have shrunk by up to 25%, ponds and entire chunks of wooded areas have vanished. Tubers, fruits, and medicinal plants that they once harvested are now scarce or locally extinct.

In these communities, it’s the women who gather fuel, fodder, and water, and manage household food supplies. So when forests degrade, or water tables fall, they’re the first to notice the impacts on daily life, and these women decided not only to track the past but to do something about it themselves.

These citizen-created maps not only allow tracking the past but also set an aspiration for the future. They document what is lost and what needs to be restored.

We work with partners like Common Grounds, Asar, Wassan, Socratus, and Corestack through Rainmatter Foundation to support initiatives like these.

You can see maps from 10 such villages put together here.

Read more: Link 1, Link 2.

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