A Public Participation GIS for Community Forestry User Groups in Nepal: Putting People Before the Technology

A Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) was developed, applied and evaluated to determine its potential to assist village communities in the management of their communal forest resources in the mountains of Nepal. It was successful in involving the community in determining their information needs, collecting data, obtaining resource information and forest management decision making. During the evaluation of the PPGIS it was found that for developmental work the emphasis needs to be firmly on participatory rather than technical issues when developing the PPGIS. This rarely occurs in practice and can be a limiting factor on the effectiveness of GIS as a participatory tool. An argument is presented that in a developmental context PPGIS should be viewed primarily as a consultative, participatory methodology rather than a predominantly technological aid.