Welcome to the MAPA website. This is the home of the Mapping Africa’s Protected Areas Project, otherwise known as MAPA.

A handful of Africa enthusiasts have decided to put every major protected area in Africa onto the digital map and make them available to the world. This has never been tried on any continent before and none needs it as desperately as Africa, home to the last great assemblages of Megafauna.  Right across the continent, and for a variety of reasons, conservation areas are struggling to provide for the plants, animals and communities that depend on them. We think that part of the problem is that Africa’s protected areas are neither visible enough nor accessible enough.

By mapping all the major protected areas, not only can we put them together in one place for travellers, researchers, journalists, students and everyone else to see online, but we can actually place them accurately on maps to give them a real place in the world.

We plan to map over a thousand important protected areas. The world has forgotten about too many of them and consequently many are protected in name only. If we can help make them visible, their future will be brighter.

Let me give you a real example: Several years ago Mike Faye, of National Geographic fame, almost single handedly put Gabon’s wildlife on the world’s TV screens. The ensuing publicity created tremendous local interest (Gabon created a number of new National Parks) and opened up a fabulous catalogue of tourist destinations. That in turn has generated greater scientific and investment interest in the country and helped secure the future for Gabons’ incredible biodoversity.

The point is this: the biodiversity and the opportunity was always there. But hardly anyone outside Gabon knew it.

The MAPA Project is going to put every major protected area on the map. Thanks to Google, we are going to make those maps available to anyone with access to Google Earth, and any non-profit organisation who thinks they can make use of the data for the benefit of Africa and her people.

We are now coming to the end of Phase 1 of the project.  Phase 1 deskwork has focussed on improving the digital boundaries of the major protected areas in Southern and East Africa.  The fieldwork seen dozens of volunteers driving through some of the most amazing protected areas in Africa, diligently recording every road and bit of infrastructure that they can find.

All of this is being turned into GPS-ready maps and a part of that data will appear on a Google Earth layer at the end of October 2009. Once wehave the layer launched, we will concentrate on the more complicated mapping in West, Central and North Africa.
Cheers

March Turnbull

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