Against a backdrop of systemic dispossession, colonial-era laws, and mounting climate pressures, the Amazigh people of Morocco’s Souss Massa region face increasing threats to their ancestral lands.
State-driven megaprojects such as national parks, biosphere reserves, and agri-business expansion have led to forced displacement, marginalisation, and the loss of traditional livelihoods, with little regard for the rights of the Amazigh people. Despite biodiversity and sustainability rhetoric, decision-making remains top-down, and laws are tailored to favour state and private interests rather than people-centred land management.
In this context, the Amazigh communities are harnessing technology for mapping their land to reclaim their narratives and defend their land rights. By making their collective land claims visible, they challenge state and investor narratives that often render Indigenous rights invisible. Through the use of platforms like LandMark, the world’s first interactive global map for Indigenous and community-held lands, not only systematic mapping per se is made easier, but it is also linked to evidence-based advocacy — strengthening IPs’ claims against arbitrary expropriation, discriminatory policies, and environmental mismanagement.
This use of digital mapping highlights the fusion of ancestral wisdom with technology. The Amazigh, long recognised as guardians of their territory, are now demonstrating how Indigenous Peoples can harness digital evidence to defend their rights. Recognising and respecting the diversity of Morocco’s land tenure systems, and amplifying the Amazigh’s lived realities is vital for advancing true people-centred land management and justice.
As we mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day under the theme “Indigenous Peoples and AI: Defending Rights, Shaping Futures,” let us amplify cases like these — where technology, tradition, and community agency converge for justice and sustainability.
