And thank you for joining the second discussion in this year's Land Dialogue webinar series organized in partnership with the Ford Foundation, the Land Portal Foundation, this meeting is being recorded and the Thompson Reuters Foundation. The initiative promotes the importance of recognizing legal ownership of Indigenous peoples and local communities' land rights as a prerequisite for achieving national and international goals of forest governance, food security, climate mitigation, economic development and human rights. This land dialogue series will run across four webinars from May to November with each webinar tackling a different topic. I'm Anastasi Maloney, the Latin America Correspondent of the Thompson Reuters Foundation and I'm delighted to be your host today. We're talking about where technology meets land rights utilizing technologies to support land governance. Indigenous peoples and local communities are using innovative technology solutions and increasingly the binding communities are integrating their traditional knowledge, skills and values with digital and satellite tools that support them in their efforts to secure their ancestral territories. I myself was recently in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest where I had the privilege to speak to Indigenous leaders about how they've embraced technology to help them protect their territory and whether it's using GPS tools and drones to map their lands and using digital tools to monitor who's entering their land where and when, technology is increasingly being used by forest communities across the world. While the use of digital tools has the potential to contribute to improving land governance there are also risks and we'll today be asking questions like where does technology meet land rights and once it does what are the potential benefits and drawbacks and while we can all agree that tech can be used for good what are the risks. So without further ado I'm going to introduce you to the panel today. I'll hand over to each one of them for some opening remarks. We'll then have a discussion for about an hour and finally take questions from the audience which will take us to just about 90 minutes. The webinar will take place in English and be simultaneously interpreted into Spanish, French and Portuguese. To access this please use the channels located at the bottom of your screen. If you do have questions please post them using the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen and not the chat box feature and then I'll yield those questions to the panelists. Also feel free to use the hashtag land dialogues and follow live tweeting from land portal and tenure facility Twitter accounts and finally in the interest of transparency I should say that today's session is being recorded and you'll be receiving the link afterwards. So on to our expert panelists firstly Frank Pitchell he's co-founder and chief programs officer at Cadastra. Frank is a land administration specialist with experience in designing, managing and implementing land related projects with a technology focused around the globe. He has worked both with the private sector or based in West Africa and as well as designing and managing programs as part of the land tenure and property rights office the US agency for international development. I also have on the panel Harold Liversage he's a land lead land tenure technical specialist at the International Fund for Agricultural Development with over 30 years of experience in land and natural resource governance issues mainly in eastern and southern Africa. In his current capacity he's responsible for assisting IFAD to protect to better address land and natural resource tenure security issues in the projects and programs it supports and this includes his engagement in regional and global initiatives such as the Africa land policy initiative and the voluntary guidelines for the governance of tenure and the global donor land working group. And last but not least we have Alicia Quintero from Panama the organization Conapip which is a leading organization representing the 12 leaders of the councils that represent Panama's seven indigenous peoples. Its mandate is to unite indigenous people under one national agenda and present proposals at a national and international level. So let's kick off today's session I'd like to turn to please to Harold. Harold can you give us some takeaways please from the recent IFAD event on applying frontier technologies to secure land rights and also could you tell us a bit more about the GeoTech4 tenure work being spearheaded by IFAD please. Good morning Harold. Hi Anastasia thanks very much for that introduction. So the side event on applying frontier technologies to secure land rights was actually a sort of a spin-off of our GeoTech4 tenure project so I'll start with that. The GeoTech4 tenure project is a peer-to-peer learning platform that's exploring how technology can or should be combined with participatory methods for social empowerment in securing land and natural source rights. It's been being developed jointly by IFAD and FAO along with our other partners FAO being the Food and Agricultural Organization. At the moment it is an online learning platform focusing on partners in the projects and programs we are supporting mainly our government and civil society partners but we hope to eventually involve a broader pool of partners and to develop a permanent service including providing technical support at project and community level so not just being online. We are covering all dimensions of tenure from collectible group rights to individual and familial rights and we are also exploring tools for securing women's land rights, improving youth access to land etc and we think our GeoTech4 tenure initiative is potentially a very powerful tool for forging partnerships at community and project level so as I said the one day learning event on frontier technology was sort of a spin-off from our GeoTech4 tenure project and in this event we want to explore more the different technologies that are being used for recording land and natural source rights and what we realized is that there has been a lot of very interesting work done by a range of practitioners in using technology going back over several decades. In fact people involved in surveying and mapping land and natural source rights were among the early users of technological solutions such as some of those that you mentioned global information systems or GIS, global navigation satellite systems or global positioning systems GPS but also using satellite imagery aerial photography and more recently mobile smartphone applications and unmanned aerial vehicles popularly known as drones and most recently artificial intelligence machine learning and distributed ledger technology such as blockchain. What we did was to interview some of the practitioners that have been testing and developing these solutions and we spoke into a wide range of people from the international development agencies, international professional bodies, academia, private sector service providers and civil society organization and what we found I guess is not so surprising but the first was that there are no standards loan solutions technologies are most effective when they're used in combination and related to this some technologies have proven to be more successful more useful than others perhaps more importantly all the people we interviewed confirmed that the use of technology has to be integrated with participatory methods for social empowerment involving the land rights holders themselves. Secondly we found that technology use must consider the enabling factors and long-term sustainability of use so do the policies and laws in a country allow for the use of technology or land recordation by local users what are the requirements for capacity development how will records be kept up to date who will manage the data etc a thirdly building on this the last main finding was that it's not actually about the technology in fact most people emphasize that the focus should be on developing appropriate culturally sensitive and agile land and natural resource management solutions that take into account the specific country and local context several of the interviewees we spoke to emphasize that the main challenges are not technological in fact they're more about things like the recognition of diverse tenure systems by governments and the development of strong community and local government land administration systems and the enabling factors needed for this that I referred to earlier uh so overall the main term that most people referred to was finding fit for purpose solutions I hope I've given a I've been able to justify and give an overview of the main points that came up all in all the discussions have been very rich and we hope to forward to continue exploring these issues with with others thank you Anastasia thanks very much Harold for that overview overview and I think you make an important point that I think will hear a lot during the session that as you say technology is most effective when it's in combination with other with other solutions and it shouldn't be seen in the silver bullet for for land tenure issues if I can stick with you Harold I'd like to get your thoughts on a study in 2020 from the from the food first information and action network fiam and it shows that despite promises to fix unjust land governance digital technologies can exacerbate or further land grabbing and inequality can you give us your thoughts on this please yeah I think indeed the fian study highlights some of the main challenges very good study and in fact we're actually using it in our geotec botanical training to highlight some of the challenges and pit bulls you know in the end of the day technology is a tool and it depends on who is using the tool and the tool can in fact be used for greater top-down social control and as the fian study highlights technology has sometimes been has sometimes been used or resulted in land grabbing and greater inequality however I must say there are also some there are also many examples of the technology being used to democratize and rapidly scale up the recommendation of local and indigenous peoples land rights especially in the developing world so for example some of the partners that we've been discussing and sharing their experiences are jkpp in Indonesia the community mapping network in Indonesia or the instituto del bien commune in Peru the Philippines association for intercultural development terra firma a private sector company in Mozambique with its partners and then cadastro who of course frank will share others such as FAO using the solutions for open land administrations or solar you inhabit using the social tenure domain model to mention a few and so there have been some very rich experiences in using technology to secure indigenous people local communities land and natural resource rights again the key for success is ensuring that the technology is placed in the hands of local communities who want to secure their land rights which as I've already said was our starting point when we were grappling with these issues so thank you so yeah please thank you thank you Harold I'm finding my last question which also I'll be asking the other panelists a key open data issue is the rights of indigenous people to control information and data about themselves and their land individually and collectively I think the key issue for many practitioners is how can we balance openness when it comes to data about land rights with indigenous data sovereignty yeah I think this is a challenging one that I don't have all the answers to personally again the key is about how indigenous peoples and local communities have control over the sharing and use of their data and we need to say that it is their data I guess the challenge is that as you've alluded by the question in general there is a call for greater transparency and openness of data related to who owns what land and the question is what does this mean for indigenous peoples and local communities I think as a guiding set of principles and practices the starting point is the principle free prime and informed consent and enabling local communities for themselves to decide on what data should be made available it may be that it is enough for the collective rights of a community to be recorded in a national land information system without giving the particular details of how those rights are allocated within the community and then for the local community themselves to run a set of records on who owns what land and including the recording and transferring of those rights within the community or with others but this depends on the context the ability to manage such records and ensuring that the state recognizes such a system for maintaining records so I guess these are some of the things we are grappling with but I think people like Frank and others might be better placed to answer how they are managing the data but actually some of the people we interviewed thought that this was one of the potential uses of blockchain by the way many of the people we spoke to felt that blockchain is not the solution but some really felt that there could be some potential use of blockchain in this way where people could use transfer their land rights without going through a centralized database now this is quite a subversive idea but one that needs careful consideration over thank you thank you very much for Harold and now I'm going to turn to Elysium he's calling in from Panama Elysium I'm going to ask the same question if I may I asked Harold earlier a study from FIEN shows that despite promises to fix unjust land governance digital technologies can exacerbate or further land grabbing and inequality Elysium can you give us your thoughts on this please let me have a look whether we have Elysium online if not then I'll move to our next panelist Elysium are you there please no okay so then while Elysium is going to join us later Frank if I could turn to you and ask you the same question what are your views on the FIEN study and the takeaways there please thanks very much Anastasia and Anastasia and you won't be surprised to hear that my comments don't differ too too widely from Harold's but you know anytime there's an imbalance in access whether that's to education whether that's to governance frankly or whether it's technology there's going to be that potential for abuse but that said I think technology more so than some of some some other issues has the power to be a democratizer in terms of land information while it's not perfect or uniformly accessible the ability for for indigenous people you know as Harold mentioned some of these examples to monitor the forest fires within their area to monitor deforestation come to a discussion regarding the carbon sequestration potential within their forests with an informed perspective is simply something that wasn't there a decade ago or on the other hand a community as as we're doing in Liberia with support from the Swedish land agency landmateria the ability for communities to access and monitor the that the stage informal recognition that they're currently in remotely is something that wouldn't have been imagined just a couple of years ago so while digital technology you know has its risks it certainly has the power to really promote transparency and for me transparency in the systems the processes and really the rights around land would be the single biggest deterrent to land grabs so that combination of being a democratizer and a deterrent to land grabs in combination with the ability to serve as an accelerator an accelerator for the capture the visualization and sharing of data certainly would make technologies if it's outweigh the risks not to dismiss them or not to say we shouldn't always be considering those risks but I think in light of everything else we should leverage the technology available and also the same question that I've been I've asked Harold the this sort of tension or or possible conflict between you know how can we balance openness when it comes to data about land rights with indigenous sovereignty what are your thoughts on that Frank sure and that I mean that's a very tough question right because on one hand we really embrace the concepts of open data but but with that is the idea that it's equitable accessible transparent and accurate and the reality is we don't have that equitable equity and access oftentimes with indigenous and local communities and with property rights of course there is always a tie into personal information a property right inherently has a name an entity associated with it and a location and in some cases that data could put organizations and communities at risk so I think fundamentally we believe that communities regardless of where they are have a right and should have the tools and ability to manage their own data that's local and sensitive to them that might include access to sacred sites to water holes to land use whatever it might be but those decisions can be made locally now data relating to property rights we would stress that as that data is captured community boundaries or individual boundaries they need to be captured in line with national standards or international standards such as the land administration domain model where relevant to ensure that this capture of data that will eventually fit into the public sphere in some way meets the requirements because what we don't want is this community mapping to be happening in isolation and with an expectation of an outcome that won't be legally feasible given the operating environments of the countries in question thank you Frank and in general could you just give us a bit more detail and overview about cadastra's work what are the exciting projects and work that we can expect to see hear about in the following months and years please sure happy to so cadastra foundation is somewhat unique in that we are a non-profit organization but with a clear technology focus part of the reason we are a non-profit is because of the inherent sensitivity of the data of our partners it is and we want to give our partners confidence that it remains their data while we are a platform and a supporter of those communities we're not taking their data or using it in ways without their their permission but as a non-profit we're relatively young about seven eight years old we come from organizationally a background in formal land administration but i think what we've seen collectively as a team starting cadastra was that formal landsomes were we're missing a vast majority in many countries small holders slum dwellers uh indigenous communities and local groups are often being left out regardless of that system being used so with cadastra the thought was really how do we provide the tools for collecting data the platform for managing data and the technical support to ensure that our partners can reach their goals whether you know a first step might advocacy for their rights with a second leading to leveraging their rights with the private sector or public sector or finally those partners are really lead all the way to formal records and i think that's where we are most excited about some of our current work is is how we're seeing partners whether working in an urban context in brazil or zanzibar using our tools at a local level by local community members reaching formal formal rights or in rural processes and customary processes as doing in in india in uganda and until iberia really serving as that intermediary between bottom up approaches and top down national systems and the data standards that the national systems require thank you very much frank for that for that overview i'm going to see whether we can we can hear from elicio now elicio are you with us anastasia i think what might be helpful here perfecto i think that here we go excellent thank you elicio wonderful you could uh you could join us so really interested to get your point of view please on on what we've been talking about because obviously you have firsthand um experience about this in your own indigenous um communities in in panamore elicio can i start please by asking um so how can we balance um openness when it comes to data about land rights with indigenous data sovereignty over to you elicio please in this case the fawren for the foundation tf and other international allies of a lot of importance that also gave us that plus to be able to contribute to indigenous communities today indigenous communities already have their data a linear database more than anything are data that of administrative political use and now we have been actualizing data that that a great advantage is the open data as you had mentioned in one of the questions but the interesting thing about this is that um each territory has been understanding how official the data can be and how sensitive the data are in terms of intellectual property in terms of mineral resources in terms of natural resources in matter of endemic areas in matter of areas of let's say threatened areas that have been created that in today the national police coordinator of the panama indigenous community uh advance advance with the few tools that we have developed with few instructives that we have uh we have been developing and that we have also had experiences with the accompaniment of other peoples of america del sur y america del norte y centro america que eso ha ayudado bastante también a describir un poquito el futuro pues de las comunidades indígena en el proceso de empoderamiento anteriormente no que quisiera ir en contra del del amigo que acaba de hablar pero una de las cosas más importante de las comunidades indígenas es que la misma comunidades también sean capaces de administrar y dominar los recursos tecnológicos que tengan y más la liberación de la información estamos en un proceso de transición también de elevar nuestra información a una plataforma nacional que sea visible disponible para todo tipo de de de sociedades comunidades que quisieran accesar a la información todavía estamos en proceso esa es una tarea titánica ya que en la actualidad no no tenemos respaldo de ninguna institución de ninguna empresa privada y y para llegar a ese nivel requiere bastante recurso y también acompañamiento técnico pero la mezcla de conocimiento entre pueblos jóvenes pues nosotros tenemos una mezcla de conocimiento entre en vera o aunan naso bri bri nove bugle guna y y los otros compañeros todos nosotros conversamos en diferente idioma pero sabemos cuáles son los propios objetivos de cada uno de su territorio que es algo a guardar la información ya sea escrita o digital ok esa sería mi respuesta elicia can i ask you a follow up question you you been you mentioned that you're doing a transition to put the information into a national platform that sounds really important interesting however at the same time are you also worried about who might be using that information and for what purposes because you mentioned earlier that the information has been used the word kidnapped or I'd say taken seized by the private sector and the government are you afraid that if you do put information and data about your communities on the national platform it might be used in ways that are not advantageous are not good or beneficial for communities could you give us your thoughts about that and how the national platform could work and what it could look like in the future perfecto muy buena pregunta me interesa primero primero ante todo las autoridades tradicionales y los las comunidades indígena de los siete pueblos de este país han sido claro no se puede divulgar ninguna información sensible que vaya a trastocar el material vegetal trastocar la parte cultural y mucho menos trastocar los recursos naturales que por muchos años han sido protegidas y más por los sitios arqueológicos o ancestrales esta información estará disponible estará disponible capas territoriales en capas de de rutas de acceso que son importantes a verle y mencionar el estado mira tú no hiciste una promesa de hacernos una vía de acceso para comunicar a una comunidad de la forma más digna posible de asfalto mira esta carretera en la actualidad no me funciona mira como cuánto en yo lleva mostrarle mapa sobre la situación de las distintas escuelas hay escuela en la actualidad que empanama que da lástima que cuando llegamos a una comunidad todavía son escuela rancho por lo menos hay puesto de salud que en las comunidades que existen y no tienen un médico no tienen las condiciones de salud adecuada y no tienen y no tienen la la los recursos necesarios por lo menos otros datos importante que se puede destinar cuánto vos que se está perdiendo diariamente y el estado tiene que garantizar de que se minimice eso esa deforestación otro aspecto importante cuánto haría se ha estado las comunidades indígena comprometida en el desarrollo de salvaguardar y proteger y recuperar las áreas de gradad cuánta hectárea se ha estado recuperando año tras año y también otro dato importante mostrar es cuánto haría se ha estado perdiendo por parte de los colonos y cuál es la presión que existe a nivel de las fronteras entre comunidades indígena y colonos o campesinos o áreas que que están siendo intervenida por por personas que no creen en la conservación más crees digamos más que están enfocado a generar economía si fuese si una economía con solidaridad estable que permita a la gente también aprovechar el mejor recurso creo que tendríamos otro escenario otro tipo de dato importante sería entonces las los proyectos de desarrollo ejemplo hay proyectos de desarrollo como la hidroeléctrica que no están de acuerdo las comunidades indígena y se propone como proyecto de desarrollo a 50 años hay que mostrarle a las comunidades y los otros territorios que eso es importante mencionarlo porque en la actualidad nosotros tenemos enlaces también con comunidades indígena de méxico alianzas con comunidades de de paraguay guatemala hondura nicaragua y otros amigos que nos dicen mira nosotros tenemos un territorio y qué lástima que nuestro territorio está titulado pero nuestro nuestro régimen municipal no va en contra de nuestros derechos porque porque permite que también el gobierno pueda otorgarle el permiso a la parte municipal a los a los a los departamentos que hagan concesiones dentro de nuestra propia tierra que ya ha sido titulado y somos los que tenemos derecho pero le dan el derecho de uso a la fuerza para aprovechar esos recursos naturales esos son cosas que hay que mostrarle al país verdad y cuánto es este cumplimiento thank you elicio i it's it's very clear that for as you are explaining for indigenous communities the control and the ownership of data is a way to hold governments accountable for what they're doing and what not they're doing for example the promises that they said that they do the plans and development plans and it's a way to keep check on on government plans and elicio if i one more question and then we'll open up the discussion got some great questions coming through the last one as i gave the other panelists you know at the study by fian shows that despite promises to fix unjust land governance digital technologies can in fact exacerbate or even further land grabbing and inequality can you give us your thoughts on this and if you had experience of this the idea that technology can be beneficial but also has its hazards and risks at the same time bueno yo creo que la pregunta es exactamente lo que hoy vivimos panama ha estado de un proceso de bueno no panama nosotros la coordinadora nacional de polo indígena de panama hemos estado en un proceso de un esfuerzo muy muy difícil donde el control de la información cartográfica y tenencial lo tiene una institución y estas personas no solamente se da uso por los datos abierto sino por los datos que están ya definido las cual ellos generan un desarrollo tienen una ventaja mucho más que las comunidades indígena dentro de ha pasado cuatro años hace cuatro años las los empresarios tenían información sobre todo lo que era el territorio indígena incluso sabían donde podían titular incluso establecían mediciones satelital sin necesidad de tocar un centímetro de superficie de tierra en el área esto provocó que en la actualidad se generaran muchas denuncias sobre el acaparamiento y ocupación ilegal de tierra claro es así mismo las ventajas tecnológicas y tú sin las comunidades indígena no se empoderan no desarrollan sus propias metodología de salvaguarda para poder avanzar y ponerle hacerle frente a esto hoy día nosotros tuviéramos un problema mucho más grande sabe que un fruto importante de esta esfuerzo fue hace unos 15 días atrás de este mismo mes bueno del mes pasado hemos dado hemos estado dando seguimiento a dos empresarios bien fuerte económicamente acá en panamá la cual llegó a tener contacto directo con tanto la autoría nacional de tierra en panamá y tanto la los municipios para para crear superficie o parcellar o dividir las superficies que ya han sido publicada ante el estado que está en proceso de titulación o proceso de reconocimiento jurídico aún así se atrevieron a hacer un proceso de titulación individual también estos colonos o estos estas personas que solamente compran tierra y venden compran tierra y venden entonces esto provocó también que estas personas hicieran concesiones de madera para aprovecharlo de manera simplificada y o comunitario pero en realidad se estaba vendiendo la madera de manera ilegal no no contaban con los permisos adecuados que por qué produjo esto gracias a esos datos que hemos estado dando el seguimiento hoy tenemos respuesta a esa lucha también que se le dio por parte de las comunidades estas personas van cuatro años de prisión esto es un resultado interesante y ojalá todos estas estos casos nos permita nosotros y le puede le permita al estado decir que las comunidades hoy día nosotros manejamos la información de los territorios y que permite también identificar si es exactamente esta esta titulación es privada están caen dentro de comunidades indígenas o no caen en comunidades indígenas esta propiación ilegal hay que hacerlo fuerte para que se vaya evitando esto elicia thank you for that and that's a really powerful example to show to show that data can be used as evidence when precisely you have problems with private companies as you were saying trying to develop on indigenous land and data is certainly being used in court cases to defend indigenous territory thank you alicia so we've heard from our three panelists today on the basic questions but i'd like to now turn to questions that we've got in the chat and harold if i can come to you first there's a a general question which i think is useful for us to answer and the question is is there a land technology standards for the metadata are there are there these standards do they exist where are they do people follow them because we've been talking about so many different regions during this discussion um is there a kind of standard for this um thanks um oh i wish you hadn't asked me this question um but uh there are there are a set of standards um and i'm hoping frankel also be able to come in on this one uh that have been developed um under the the uh what is the LADM stand for uh what it stands for it's um the land administration domain model standard which is um really one of the standards that is i'm going to post in the chat i don't know how this will help um is an attempt and if you look at the international federation of surveys uh site that they um spell out uh these standards and it's an attempt to actually sort of come up with some sort of international standards so in short yes there is um but it is something that's still being developed and some of them people have been adopting let me just see can i put this in the chat is it possible or just i'm not sure if i can just um i don't know how to put this in the um here we go there it is we can see it there it is thank you so yeah that's what i that's my understanding yes there is an attempt uh to develop these standards and it's more like a self-regulating standard that is being developed by uh by by the the international community thank you harold uh frank would you like to add anything to that where where are we at with creating a sort of an international standard that everyone is using and agrees by because it seems to me that's one of the one of the challenges isn't it indeed indeed and and the um the iso standard that harold references i think was passed probably in 2014 2015 and really began to bring some coherence and standardization now that said i think we all recognize that each country context is is a bit different and it does need to be contextualized for that country specific model but it puts us all in a level playing field in terms of how that data is managed and in fact is a big part of our work at cadastra and looking at these data standards and national data standards to ensure the data captured locally can can can meet the requirements and ultimately be accepted i've got another question here in the chat that i think applies to most region and is another challenge that we're facing in this space and the question is across most countries in africa technology has grown way ahead of regulation what are the legal and policy considerations that such countries should bear in mind while adopting these tech innovations and i think that we can say that that applies to not only africa but across the world you know tech is always quicker than laws we are finding in all sorts of spheres so um harold how do you how can we ensure that you know the legal framework can catch up with the technology again a challenging question i think you know in the end of the day it's about political will um and indeed the technology has outpaced um you know ahead of many of the regulations i think there's no earlier question by jonathan as well i think which which sort of relates to this and i think some of this is about it links to some of the discussion we're having now about the recognition of um individual rights and the emphasis on registering and and and allocating individual rights to to rights holders when in fact what we really need is a starting point is the recognition of diverse customary uh tenure systems which range from more sort of group right systems to ones that might be sort of a mix of that plus familial rights and access to to to certain types of land so really the starting point is the development of those um policy legal frameworks that recognize diverse customary tenure systems i must say i think yes as jonathan has said this is one of the challenges but i think we've seen quite a a general thrust towards us at least in africa in other parts of the world it's a bit mixed in some of the there's already that recognition but then the issue is how does that get translated into practice um and so yes and and the technology in itself uh as i i think i was trying to say earlier you know you have to have that recognition yes with the technology you can go and you can do all of this mapping etc but then it has to have that legal recognition and then linked to that though is also the institutional and capacity building to ensure that those rights can be managed and regulated you know if it's being managed as a as a collective right that local communities have in fact got the capacity and are able to manage those rights and and the transfer those rights between individuals in their communities over yes thanks harrell frank can i get your thoughts on that as well um harrell's mentioning that um perhaps in africa in some country in africa there are it's more advanced in terms of legal framework to define and regulate all this um where else are you finding are there any countries that are particularly advanced in this process sure you know and that that question about the the legal frameworks is so important because as as we know we can we can do all we want with technology but if if the broader governance frameworks aren't in place does it really matter um and getting those frameworks in place particularly around land given the range of government institutions often involved is so critical so that you know just because we improve the land information system how are we ensuring that's relating to the planning to the property tax to all of the other governance needs so so quite critical there now we've had some success i think where customary and statutory particularly in africa are working to align so that there's not that discrepancy between customary de facto land administration that's happening and statutory um you know legal land administration where we can align those two like we're seeing in in gana in uganda there there's so much more potential right and we don't run into the same conflicts we might see elsewhere um thank you frank and alicia i'd like to turn to you because i've got this really interesting question here in in the chat which i think is really um relevant and actually not that talked about um it says when we're talking about uh digital technology um what what do we need to think about when it affects those involuntary isolation or indigenous groups with initial contact uh alicia i'd like to get your your thoughts on that please i think we've lost alicia there oh no here we are here we are alicia please go ahead how do you do we know what are what are the views about the use of top technology for indigenous groups that actually don't want uh to be part of of this perhaps are and are involuntary isolation for their own reasons bueno eh me escuchan yes we do bien eh eh todo esto tiene su razón por la cual las comunidades indígena se cuenta con esa resiliencia actual no pero también eh es importante mencionar que que para poder nosotros pasamos esa prueba ya ya eso lo hemos pasado a principio las comunidades indígena no quería saber de tecnología incluso cuando empezamos a desarrollar actividades con drones eh utilizar imágenes de satélite al eh digamos haciendo análisis espaciales eh estábamos utilizando dispositivo móvil para colecta de dato eh empezamos a hacer una serie de de pruebas pruebas muy muy muy muy importante para las comunidades pero esto es clave también cuando las comunidades indígena también se identifica de donde tú vienes el derecho al consentimiento libre previo informado es clave para esto no puedes pasar de eso sin haber primero entendido cuál es el engranaje eh de la política interna de estos pueblos las políticas internas de estos pueblos van más allá todavía del derecho a que se le vulnera en el caso de que se le va a extraer una información más allá todavía eh nosotros hemos nosotros iniciamos una prueba de acercamiento que era difícil primero que las comunidades entendiera para que era eso porque todo para ello es una amenaza todo todo en este sentido nosotros empezamos un proceso de socialización en materia de recurso trabajar fuertemente y del de lleno también a identificarse un poco sobre las actividades que ellos consideraban de mayor prioridad y que era necesario atender y uno de los temas era tierra otro de los temas era bosque y otro de los temas era el agua y también la participación comunitaria era difícil primero interpretar lo que ellos querían porque todo estaban en distintos idiomas y y era clave también definir quién iba a ser el elemento que pudiese socializar esa información que no cualquiera lo pueda hacer y tiene que ser seleccionado por ello mismo una vez que sea seleccionado por ello mismo entramos en un proceso de de organización de información para que sea digamos cumpliendo un proceso de trazabilidad interno local y que garantice a ello que la información que se estaba generando que se está desarrollando sea de alta confianza y de credibilidad esa es la primera tarea la segunda tarea es salir de ahí con la información que yo ya dispuñeron y elevarlo entonces a una a una mesa de trabajo técnica científica ahora con la institución para precisamente hacer lo que ya estamos conversando que la valorización jurídica de esta información no te creas pasamos dos años más de tres años para conseguir la valorización jurídica de la información digamos de sistema de información geográfica cartográfica topográfica con la institución hasta que pudiesen entender y esto se debe gracias también a la lucha que la conapía emprendió junto con las autoridades tradicionales de este país y también llamando a digamos así presionando a las instituciones responsables que tiene que ver con materia de datos geodesicos en brindar la calidad jurídica de esto y también certificar esta información entonces en la actualidad ya rompimos esa barrera y yo lo que sí le quería yo lo que sí le quería mencionar era esto lo siguiente cuando se habla de tecnología hay información de alta confiabilidad o de alta de alto perfil que no se puede sistematizar por eso que toda la información que generamos se hace de forma cerrada no sé si bueno la presentación lo puse pero la información que se genera es de forma cerrada y no enviándolo a un portal ya que esto no tenemos control a ellos la información que tú generes mediante una aplicación ejemplo una aplicación o de k tú lo desarrollas tiene una plataforma en estados unidos digamos un soporte en estados unidos la información una vez que conecte ese dispositivo y dispositivo se conecte con una red wifi o un punto de acceso a internet inmediatamente se va automatizada y esta información automatizada no tenemos control de ella por la cual por eso las comunidades indígena dice bueno vamos a participar en un proceso de sistematización automatizada esta información pero no queremos que no esté llevando los materiales vegetales de aquí o el material vegetal aquí sin haber pasado el pro y el proceso de derecho y propiedad intelectual y mucho menos consentimiento libre previo informado podemos participar como un plan piloto para conocer como como como ese proceso automatizado y como ese proceso cerrado que nosotros si tenemos el control porque si sabemos decir ministerio ambiente esta la información que tenemos y estas son las coordenadas pero si se automatiza posiblemente es una ventaja para nosotros pero una de ventaja también porque no tenemos el control del mismo y también se no puede escapar de la mano si la plataforma jurídicamente tampoco tiene un proceso reconocido y tampoco avalado por las autoridades tradicionales que también tiene interés de esa información hasta y lo dejo gracias thank you lisa it's it's really important to bear in mind what you are saying because when we talk about technology you have just told us you know at the beginning how challenging it was amongst your own communities who saw this as a threat there was confusion there was mistrust about this process and then also as you were saying two three years it took to get this information legally binding and acknowledged by the government so it's a huge complex process where you have to have everyone on board and it really i think comes down to this question as issue of how to build credibility and trust there is a question here which which at least i'm going to turn to you because i think you'll be best positioned to answer so there is a person on the chat saying you know great you know in our communities we would like to use technology but it can't be in an equal equitable way because simply we don't have even cell phone service we don't have phone service we don't have computers that technology so when you're starting from that base how can indigenous communities be part of of this solution when obviously hard to reach forest communities simply don't have access to even you know a cell phone elicio how do we break that kind of barrier well a lot of questions one alone and i tell you the experience that we have passed that is why it is said that all this information is closed first through an exercise developed with the with the fao in 2016 we did two tests first to use it equipments and available applications without the need for internet without the need for only connection to satellites only that worked very well and the fao did not bring us a series of applications that were necessary to connect to a portal to a network to a wifi support and all this and it did not work it did not work I was clear it did not work because because first we not all the time we have internet second the communities are extremely difficult and third the territory is extremely complicated also to walk through which there is rain we have to pass river we have to spend hours under a forest days in the mountain and I can't use an application that does not work well in the case of the software I am going to mention an experience that we spent the last year when we were using the free software in this case there is a software that is in constant development but it is important for the community to have it in this case we are working with how many kids not with arquise so what is the difference in panama you cannot use a how many kids that is a free software to present an official document or a cartographic plan to the state because the state does not recognize that legally here legally recognize a software that they say arquise truth what this causes is that in any way we need a support from an organization or a person who is using this type of software because it does have the license and as it is a free software and immediately you cut the right to the community to present their technical proposals through cartographic plans or a series of information now what do we do in the development of these activities we find out that in Honduras in a municipality a pilot plan that was also developing the government in Honduras certified the official use of the how many kids to develop a follow-up methodology and traceability on the activities of detention this tells us that not only panama can include that but that also in other countries that also have these problems in economic issues so that indigenous communities have access to these tools they can do it let's go for the third now how do we do now so that we indigenous communities make the development of the closed data well first we make a geographical database with all the with all the information that we can collect from the present and from the past and present more than anything and presenting it then for the future through community participation in that indigenous communities we take a mobile phone with an application in this case the map which is a versatile application and it has the capacity to include different types of elements or layers within it and there we also take a backup of information of geographical information system and we take the software that is free we explain each one of these processes so that they understand that it is in constant development and any change they can also identify those those elements that are within the software in development now what do the communities do the communities the techniques of the communities are selected the traditional authorities of the territories select their techniques these techniques have a degree of knowledge about the computer about technical terms and it also facilitates the process of analysis then after that then it begins to give a follow-up process it is not any training it is not a workshop to fill quota it is not a workshop of processes that goes from zero to advanced levels in the case of us we are at advanced levels to spatial analysis using google engine we already have a lot of information and that is helping us a lot also to the geoprocesses that we have been developing now these communities each one starts with a basic training process later to develop all that information is made the call to the communities to present what has been and why the importance of those data and how they can participate participate in the execution for a year for months for weeks according to the situation that i have that would be my contribution thank you elisio there is another question on the chat which i think is worth worth exploring and we have touched on it a bit but maybe i can get a bit more of your insight harold and frank on this question the question is how open are governments to receive maps produced by non-state organizations i'm assuming also that would be obviously indigenous groups forest communities that have different standards so for example again we're talking about this standardization of maps and who agrees whether what map can be admitted for whatever reason in your experiences where have you been working have the governments been open to receiving different kinds of maps that are not the so-called official maps who would like to take that question first perhaps frank can i turn to you please and then harold sure happy to take a first cut at that you know similar to the to the land administration domain model bringing a little bit of a sea chain in 2012 and the thinking about how about data standards with fig and the world bank's paper on fit for purpose land administration in 2014 2015 we saw a real change in i think the professional surveying sector and there are alternative approaches to collecting data that can incrementally be strengthened and made more accurate and i think that's been somewhat slow to be accepted by governments but is very gradually and perceptibly becoming a something becoming accepted and in part because governments are recognizing that you know a hundred percent cadastral and registry coverage that is you know centimeter accurate is is a pipe dream and is is millennia away at our current levels of progress being made but more incremental approaches will allow us to close the gap using technology in a more more cost effective way but governments what governments don't want is is in turn communities just showing up or individuals showing up and saying here's my claim right let's process it because there there there are standards there are laws there are precedents and land rights which really i think just highlights that need for for communities to be looking at these national standards ahead of the mapping because you don't want all of this effort to be wasted when you then go to government and have a great case for advocacy as to why this land belongs to this community but it just isn't never going to legally meet the requirements thank you thank you for and over to you harold have you had any particular experience in governments that are perhaps more open than others in in receiving different types of information by different types of people that they are perhaps in the past not used to receiving in your experience has there been a government or governments that stands that stands out for that unfortunately it's it's it's perhaps the the challenge is more the issue about i think it's a good question by the way i see there's been a lot of questions posted in the q and a as well as the chat so i've been jumping between the two but answering most of these in the q and a so i don't know if that's being shared with everybody because i think i answered this one but i can't even find the answer i gave just a few minutes ago but i think it is a challenge it is really a challenge to to get governments to accept work that has been done by NGO civil society organizations and i think the key really is about involving them early on in the process but yes there are examples i mean for me from my own experience in Mozambique for example um there are certain standards that are set by government but then as long as NGOs are are showing that they are following procedures that there's been the right type of consultations indicating who has been consulted etc the documentation of the process then the process is accepted um and there are other countries that are sort of following suit but my mind has gone blank right now but yes it is i think the key though is really if possible to the extent possible uh involving at some point early on a certain level of validation from the local authorities in the process they don't have to be part of the process all the way but getting them involved early on uh at least in some of the meetings is an important step to getting their their acceptance of the process um thank you i think we have Alicia was talking about his own community's experiences in Panama about you know the process and the complex process that communities have to go through to adopt technologies but i'd like to have a bit of insight from frank and harrigan this um there's a question here in the chat that says uh which other people have made the point that um you know using technology uh and digital tools is really capital intensive um and the idea is you know once you have often pilot projects how do you then scale these up uh and the exact question is you know what strategies from your experience have you worked in to ensure that there's a progressive use of technologies and land administration through resource allocation um allocation by government so uh i think the idea is how do you then once you have a pilot project how do you then scale that up um to become more more mainstream and widespread among communities in a particular country um frank would you like to have a go at having a go at that question please sure no and a tough question there um you know on one hand i would argue that um new technology is perhaps less capital intensive than some of the traditional surveying technology that is you know with a with a smartphone for a hundred or two hundred dollars you know everybody can now capture you know three to five meter positional accuracy data you know that's that's a tremendous advancement in the last 10 or 15 years and i think that that opens up the door to some incremental capture of data um that can then be improved upon and that's of course where would be greater cost as you take that you know three to five meter to meter to sub meter accuracy and as the value of the land might dictate um now how do we think about the scaling up and in part it it is that it's how do we start with the low end technology use of imagery use of smartphones for initial demarcation that can then be improved upon but it's also how do we link the property rights to something else and ensure that that that that individuals and communities are benefiting from something and not just a a piece of paper that they can see that their rights are being protected that perhaps they're benefiting from some government services now being provided that it's linking them to markets etc there needs to be that clear clear linkage between citizens and the government that there's a benefit for engaging in land administration because it does bring up bring with it a cost you know going and registering that land as a cost and in turn it's a responsibility now for that citizen that is part of the bureaucracy to maintain the land pay of property taxes might be relevant etc thank you right and Harold over over to you for the same question please what are your thoughts as Frank says it's quite a challenging one and I actually want to start with a an example of a solution where it's not about the technology so for example in Ethiopia what's called the first level certification there's no use of technology it's all about local land administration officers at the lowest level and it's about local processes communities walking boundaries agreeing that this is a person's land in the highland areas it's much more individualized versus the lowlands which is collective group lands but each family agreeing yes this is my neighbor's land etc and you get a certificate and let's say the central state has no idea where that land is so you know let us not lose sight of those solutions actually better to start like that and then and then to start to develop the technology and the capacities as you go forward and I think yes Frank Frank has said much of it you know new technologies the cost is coming down all the time the other thing that Frank said that I very much like it's about the fit for purpose again that it's an evolving system so you know do you need sub meter accuracy in a in a remote rural area is it because it's not about the accuracy of the the point it's more about the agreement between neighbors on where those boundaries are you know and if you are as Frank says between three to five meters you're pretty much there whereas in a in a high urban in an urban area then maybe eventually you need a high level of precision high level cost which eventually then the users can start paying for um but now to get that sort of fit for purpose that's sort of standard that Frank said three to five meters that is again the issue of the policy and legislative framework so you know the one way of reducing the cost is by reducing the the standards and the requirements and that again is sometimes you have to there's a bit of work that's needed to be done with the professionals especially in government in reducing those standards the other thing I agree with Frank it's about you know as as communities become incentivized I think you know the initial registration can be done by a state on a systematic basis we systematically register land and that brings down the cost but then the subsequent transactions on that land if if there's an emerging land market for example then perhaps that needs to be managed by local community institutions like a village land registry for example in Tanzania if I use an example and then maybe it is paid by the user but the cost is much lower and they do it on a demand-driven basis so those are some of the ways in which one can I think can address the issues of long-term sustainability moving from a sort of a pilot to a scale up thank you very much Harold and Alicia I'm coming back to you because we kind of touched on this at the beginning where we talked about that you know there are also pitfalls and risks with using new technologies but I think it's worth sort of summing up what have been the challenges or in particularly in your experience of using digital tools in your indigenous community so Alicia the question is it's a general one but if you could focus on a couple of examples perhaps the question is what are the negative consequences of using new technologies in land governance what are the particular challenges you talked about initially that some indigenous community saw as a threat there was a long process of raising awareness about what it means and what it can do but if you could summarize the challenges again that you've been facing Alicia over to you while Alicia is going to come to us I'm going to then ask the same question to Harold and Frank the pitfalls the risks how would we define them here we are Alicia here we are yes over to you please shall I ask the question again the the question was what are the negative consequences or the challenges of using new technologies digital tools in land governance and monitoring that you and your communities have experienced okay I can say I can say the question to you in Spanish if you like okay I'm then going to ask Harold Harold what have you found to be the pitfalls obviously in various region to region but there are any sort of challenges that communities need to think of before they embark on this kind of use of technology Harold would you like to answer please Harold off you go yeah sure sorry I wasn't sure if you're asking us yes sorry it was yes yeah I think there are many and it really some of it comes back to you know in whose hands is the technology you know if you come but then this is a general point it's not just about technology it's how do outsiders come and engage with local communities when when we think there's a service or a benefit or you know and especially in terms of government services and so on you know if you come it's it's the key is about involving people at the start and explaining what is being done etc if you came into a community as I remember once happening many years ago and you've got a sort of a an aerial on your back and you're walking around and you're not talking to people and you're mapping and so on immediately people get very suspicious and they think you're coming in and you're going to steal their land and not with not without good reason sometimes so it's really how you come into it that being said I've also seen I've always been amazed the use of for example satellite imagery or aerial photography come in to a community sit down show an aerial photography start discussing with them you know their own resources look what's going on and them explaining to you it's amazing how people interact with that sort of technology and that becomes a tool for them digitizing and getting their worldview into into international perspective the other thing is don't you know what we now see increasingly in many parts of the world you know is the use of mobile phones and these are the tools that are you know really for mapping for GPS etc people are using these tools they're no longer foreign tools for people so I think that's one of the challenges around technology there are others that I always refer to as the logistical and that's where especially at when you're wanting to add volume you know training people enabling them to capture upload that data into a system it's not as easy as you think it's as as you said it Anastasia the technology in itself is not the magic bullet there's the social dimension which is about putting the hands in the tech in the technology in the hands of the people and then there's the sort of the logistical which as you know things go wrong on the day getting things lined up the pure logistics of being able to register land and I think those are some of the key challenges thanks I'm going to move to Frank and then Alicia if you could stand by for the same question please Frank sure you know I think one of the things we see on the on the mapping side and applying technology to land administration is this idea of the the perfect tool right the perfect tool is going to fix everything and if we build the perfect tool just right it will address the challenge when I think is as heralded to oftentimes the biggest challenge aren't technology related it's governance it's building that that community understanding and developing community bylaws so starting with the technology that gets you 70 or 80 of the way there but lets you get started and get working right away is probably for my perspective a much better decision than trying to build out the perfect tool for a singular situation that then you're going to have a problem maintaining in the future as well so starting with the basics there's a lot off the shelf building from that and then as you as the experience dictates refining just some considerations for our partners as they begin their work thank you and Alicia would you like to answer that that question you with us of course yes we would we've been discussing the the challenges and the negative perhaps negative consequence of using digital tools and technology in land governance you mentioned some of the challenges are there negative consequences that you have found in your communities what have been the main challenges when using tech to monitor your lands and the land governance that institutions that are responsible so that the communities understand that they also feel supported by the state but in reality it's not like that to get to this level has passed many tests and it's interesting to also mention that another challenge is that permanently despite the fact that it has been developing a methodology using the tip tool let's say high technology there is still no clear policy on how to reduce the land problems and if we work at the level of governance we have also found that participation in institutions is still not clear because each one plays an important role in minimizing these failures in indigenous territories for many years that many years have been complaining a clear example we have found areas of areas with mineral resources that for many years have been protected by the community and even so se ha emitido denuncia y el estado nos dice nada hemos encontrado persona que destruyen el la la la vida silvestre matando dos de 20 30 animales solamente para vender y cuando se le hace un proceso de denuncia no va preso no hay nada entonces esto ha sido titánico el desafío por la adaptación política según la situación de gobernanza y la lucha por la por defender los recursos el otro desafío importante que siempre le hemos estado mencionando es que el tema de la tecnología debe ser sostenible ante las comunidades indígena por la cual es complicado porque mucho de esto requiere de recursos se ha estado estableciendo convenios de apoyo de cooperación con el estado pero en realidad no son todos los las instituciones responsables ante esto que estén cumpliendo otro es otro desafío es que a corto plazo se garantice la seguridad jurídica de los territorios y evitar un poco el tema de la burocracia institucional que es un desafío que permanentemente cada cada año y cada gobierno establece su propio libro para poder entonces este dilatar las acciones de derecho a la tierra también hemos encontrado un importante desafío en el desarrollo de las capacidades es que contantemente habíamos escuché llegar a lograr logré alcanzar escuchar el tema de los de los datos el tema de la precisión de los datos yo yo estoy plenamente seguro que si nosotros trabajamos con datos que no requerimos de alta precisión muchas cosas se verán resueltos porque una cosa importante ante la ante la precisión de los datos es la oficialización del de la inspección ocular que se desarrolla en terreno eso es clave porque la inspección ocular tú puedes definir físicamente dónde está esa coordenada y ubicar a esas parcelas o esas personas que tienen conflicto tenencial simplemente haciéndole una caracterización de la zona y explicando la ubicación específicamente de no pero el estado quiere que se haga de manera precisa con instrumento que cuesta en de 27 mil dólares que no genera nada simplemente es un proceso entonces para para el estado está bien para nosotros no está bien pero tenemos que adaptarnos a eso también entonces ha sido un desafío crucial y la tecnología las comunidades indígena poco a poco lo ha ido adaptando porque sabemos que sino que damos sin sin utilizar estos recursos tecnológicos y haciendo toda la mezcla de esta de estos de estos instrumentos nosotros no no podemos defender aún así todavía están viendo que si las comunidades indígenas tiene mucha información es una amenaza para el estado también porque sabemos dónde pegarle verdad entonces de igual forma hemos estado también haciendo alianzas con organizaciones solidaria y empresa privada para reforzar poco a poco la gestión que se está desarrollando a través de la coordinadora nacional de todos indígenas y también la voluntad de los jóvenes que han estado voluntariamente apoyando en estos procesos y que en algún día se le llega a reconocer ante el estado y que se que tengamos un convenio para poder entonces este contar con recursos económico de manera permanente para poder ayudar también al gobierno y a estas instituciones hacer su trabajo ya que no lo pueden hacer eso sería mi intervención thank you lisa i think you've touched on a couple of points that we've already discussed in this session the idea of political will and the role of the government in in all this and also the sustainability of of projects and how to maintain and renew the digital tools but overall i think the impression i'm getting from your message is that tech is really important as a tool with which to defend your territories and it seems to me that the well from what you're saying that the advantages definitely outweigh the risks and pitfalls so i'm conscious of time we've got about four minutes i'd like to ask a final question to each of my panelists please um a forward-looking question if you could summarize in a minute each please where what are the future trends here um you know what are the exciting tech tools that are going to come out harold you mentioned in the beginning you know the use of blockchain perhaps to decentralize data which seems very exciting and new um what digital tools would you like to be using more and seeing more of in the future um frank a forward-looking trend setting answer please if we can sure you know for me it's the decentralization of land administration the ability and activity of digital tools etc to allow for local governments to play a leading role in in those land governance transactions so that for rural communities it isn't seen as something from a disconnected government the capital that is too expensive to add access um too difficult to reach in a never-ending bureaucratic process and instead is something that can be done locally by you know a district official that that is known and you know increasing to you know what while we're not there yet in 100 percent activity we're moving very quickly in places that i wouldn't have thought were possible we're now seeing you know sub sub county land offices um to national land information systems so you're having that transparency thank you and and harold if you want to mention a bit more about blockchain or are there any other exciting trends that you think we're going to be seeing a lot more of in the future when it comes to land governance and the use of digital tools actually i mentioned blockchain but um some of our my partners and collaborators um from fo and others would um would shoot me down on that one because i think actually from a many of them i think you know actually something we learned perhaps what i learned in the process is four or five years ago blockchain was seen as the new solution and it's kind of falling out of flavor at the moment um it's less uh seen as a solution i think many actually now say that maybe it's not really a solution it's it's too soon to say so i think some of the other technologies that um people are referring to and i'm not an expert in these things i'm also learning on the job and many of these things are things like artificial intelligence and machine learning which is one potential tool an interesting thing that came out of our interviews are things like uh face recognition um simple ways of providing identification to people which is one of the big challenges in fact faced uh so some of the work and then i think already mentioned and i know claudia has posted on the work that they've been doing in the use of drones i think that's actually something that's quite interesting um but i agree with frank you know i always like to say we don't need Rolls Royce's we need bicycles we need a lot of bicycles so let us not lose sight of of the the simpler more basic technologies that really can do the job um and are cheaper affordable and easier to put into the hands of the people which still goes back to simple gis uh low low accuracy gis open perhaps open source a lot of discussion around open source gis um but simple gis information systems and and that's basically enough and and in many ways um and satellite imagery for me aerial photography satellite imagery along with drones where it's needed um those are for me are actually still the the solutions but i'll go back to my point i made about Ethiopia maybe the thing is about starting with not with the technology so how are you going to go about systematically mapping how do you work how do you build on participatory mapping exercises that communities do start with that and then start to think about how do you uh digitize and then get that into national information system so really let's not lose sight of the basics thank you alicia apologies we've come now to the end of the webinar session i won't have time to get back to you but i just wanted to uh sum up i think really the the key message here is that everything's got to start with the principle of free prior and informed consent i think that we can agree that that is the basis of of all this and the use of uh any new technologies um i'd like to thank elicio from panama harold frank thank you so much for a really great discussion thank you to the hundreds of people that have been solamente agregar solamente agregar la biblioteca virtual solamente agregar la biblioteca virtual en los lugares donde no hay acceso a información y ahí es clave para poder ayudar a estas comunidades we'll be looking forward to seeing that virtual library develop over the years and thank you for all your great questions and a good afternoon and good morning to wherever you are thank you goodbye


All right, happy Friday afternoon to everybody and thank you so much for showing up for my talk. I really appreciate it I hope I will do it justice. I inherited this talk a little bit late in the process and so this is kind of Going to be I think an evolving talk for me. So So my name is Joe Brockmeyer. I work at Percona. We do open-source databases. I'm not going to Make this one big commercial or anything, but that's why I'm talking about databases. So I think that's at least relevant. I'm head of community at Percona So I've been in open-source for more than 20 years and Part of my career I worked at Red Hat and worked on a project that unfortunately no longer exists called project atomic I worked on portfolio marketing around the rail container story for a while And now I work at Percona with databases, which is why I'm discussing this topic, but I'm not a Hardcore Kubernetes expert or anything like that. So how many folks in the audience are working with Kubernetes like every day? All right, y'all know way more than I do No shame admitting that. How many folks work with Kubernetes at all? How many folks are working with databases? All right, okay How many folks have no idea why they're in this room and thought I was gonna be talking about something else nobody okay great. All right, all right Okay, so what we're gonna be talking about here I'm gonna talk a little bit about why we're talking about this why it's a topic why it got accepted I think why it got accepted to the conference. I'm gonna talk a very brief history of Linux containers I'm gonna talk about containers as they exist today As a mainstream technology Then we'll talk about are they ready for production databases Then I'm gonna talk about Kubernetes and things at scale because a lot of times now when people say containers what they really mean is Kubernetes Right, they really mean can I put this into Kubernetes or not? Then I'll talk a little bit about the challenges that are specific to Databases for Kubernetes and I'll talk a little bit about how you might handle those and then also close it off with I'm not a believer in No matter what technology you may be evangelizing or Working with it's not always the right technology for everything So there are some times when maybe Kubernetes in your database or not the right match, right? So why are we still talking about this containers have been mainstreamed for a while? But Organizations are still adopting containers and Kubernetes, right like is the future is here, but it is not widely distributed, right? So we've crossed the chasm from interests people thinking about maybe we want to play with Kubernetes Maybe maybe to we actually do want to use this, but this is a lot like Linux adoption in the early 2000s, okay So if you were around in the early 2000s as Linux was becoming mainstream Kind of crept in from the edges, right? Everybody didn't put all of their workloads on Linux right away You had your file and print servers and your web servers, and then it crept in closer and closer and soon You knew that they what they're running Oracle databases on Linux Wall Street's using Linux everybody's using Linux now What happened? How did that happen? That's the same thing with Kubernetes Why databases why is that this a specific thing that we want to talk about because databases are at the heart of most of Our businesses, right? That's where your data lives These are really important applications for you and so that's a very important topic and The other reason is because containers are great for stateless applications and databases are the original stateful application like you did just these are two very different things. These are you know either like milk and Nachos or it's like, you know Reese's peanut butter cups like which one is it like is this gonna measure is this not So lots of legacy applications people are thinking about lifting and shifting and getting it wrong is extremely costly This is the important thing. So at Precona we work with people's databases and people are like holy crap This is really important and if we get it wrong Bad things happen to our business the database goes down. We can't operate in some fashion or we lose data, which is even worse, right? Oh, and I do want to you know a little ask Reese there when I'm talking about containers We're talking about Docker style containers. There are more than one way to contain things So a brief history of Linux containers. How many folks have been in the industry for more than 10 years? A lot of y'all some old folks in the room. Okay, great more than 15 More than 20 All right, the AARP is signing up right outside that no I Started getting those when I was like 40. I'm like seriously seriously. Okay All right. So anyway, Linux has had containers for a long time. It's had charoot for a long time You could contain a process using charoot Which was a very primitive but a form of container and then Way back in the early 2000s for a while I work for a hosting company in Denver called data 393 and we adopted this thing called virtuoso anybody ever use virtuoso All right Virtuoso was a original form of Linux containers that was a lightweight virtualization basically it was a whole system container and the idea was for hosting companies let you carve up your servers into Multiple servers and offer Private virtual servers for people because a lot of people didn't like the shared hosting model They wanted what felt like their own server and we used virtuoso for that later. They open source that is open vz There are a lot of hosting companies that still use open vz but the CTO CIO at data 393 were pretty smart fellas and they Used it in a non-prescribed way Which is relates to the topic of databases production databases what they would do because we had customers who would get a dedicated server Outgrow it because this was before scalable applications They would outgrow it and we would have to migrate them to a new server, which was painful So what we would do is provision the whole thing with virtuoso and give them one big container on the system and Provision all of the resources when they outgrew the server We would migrate that container to another server, which was a pretty clever way of Migrating people and handling customer problems similar to what you might think about doing with a production database Then LXC came around Similar to Docker how many folks have played with LXC a little bit Does similar things to Docker but without the neat developer tooling Docker came along and Put all this wonderful tooling around working with containers that nobody else had done and revolutionized the way that we think about working with So here we are 2023 I'm gonna take a quick drink because I'm starting to dry out here. I rarely talk this much in one time So basically Docker style containers. They're the tooling to manage the containers and that's not just Docker.  Some of it's just in the system container. Okay, I Bring all that up because It's pertinent to the question of can you run databases in a container you kind of already do even if you don't use containers So there is no reason you can't run a pet database in a container With a couple of extra steps. So and it might even be handy for you in some instances. Let's say You've got an application. You got a beefy server and you've got one application that needs my sequel five seven You've got another one needs my sequel eight and you've got another application that needs a version of postgres Real beefy server carve it up into three with containers And you're gonna have three different containers running on the system that won't conflict too much with one another, right? So you can use this for production databases, okay? It's slightly more overhead. It's slightly more complicated, but a pet container might be doable All right, but really what a lot of folks are thinking about is can I use? Databases with Kubernetes because I'm starting to write applications for Kubernetes. I'm starting to do cloud native apps Can I use them with can I use my database with these things right because I've got my data in this? I've got my apps over here So just a little illustration CNCF report recently 96% of organizations are using or evaluating Kubernetes, right? So We know everybody's going in this direction the same way everybody was going in the direction of Lennox, okay? It's just a matter of how fast and how completely they get there, okay? and Then there how many folks have heard on the about the data on Kubernetes folks Just one okay, so I'm here to evangelize for data on Kubernetes Which is a group that is trying to solve problems not just around databases, but data in general stateful applications and large data sets on top of Kubernetes and So they did a survey last year. I think it was a report with 500 respondents and 90% say they think that Kubernetes is ready for stateful workloads. Okay, 71% say they're already doing that in production Okay, now these are the people who responded to that survey. So there's probably a little bit of self-selection going on But almost all of the people surveyed said that they're more productive Using Kubernetes than not okay, so when they move things into Kubernetes it makes them more productive 76% of the 500 say that they're using databases in Kubernetes. So obviously For some value of ready Kubernetes is ready for production databases But they also say that day two operations are a significant challenge This is not a shock day two operations are always a challenge for every technology It's usually easy to spin things up. It's mark much harder to keep them spinning, right? But only 9% of those respondents say that they're getting more than 20% of their revenue related to this So in other words, it's widely used, but it's this deep right now, but it's getting deeper And by the way, I will put these slides up on my blog. My blog is disassociated press net You just Google for Joe Brockmeyer. You'll probably find that eventually. I'll put these up on my blog No later than I'm gonna say Monday Sunday is Mother's Day, and I feel like I need to attend to that But I will make sure that by Monday these slides for this talk and my previous talk are up on my blog So you'll be able to download the PDF and you can get all the URLs and things that are in here So anyway, good report recommend reading through the whole thing So what is good about databases on Kubernetes? Pretty much the same thing that's good about other things on top of Kubernetes, it's where your other workloads are at If that's where they are you can move more quickly to deploy things into Kubernetes Then you can to a bare metal server or virtualization or yada yada yada You have automation on Kubernetes. You can do self-healing Things are portable if you're running Kubernetes in your data center and you want to move something out to EKS or Amazon Or you want to move something to OpenShift? It should work from you know, assuming these are fairly similar versions of Kubernetes Should work across those things Now with databases, there's the extra consideration of how much data am I trying to chuck from one data center to another? But at least in theory your applications and everything should be portable between them And there's also the potential for self-service, right? You get more potential to allow people to provision their own databases and things on top of these Which makes it much easier for your DBAs who don't want to spend their time provisioning databases They want to spend their time tuning databases and doing all those wonderful things but there are challenges and Some good things so good if you're writing new green field applications in cloud native apps, this is good It's great for development and testing because you're usually not hammering huge databases, but you can prototype things quickly If you're already a Kubernetes organization, this is a much better You know, it's it's better for you if things are in Kubernetes than not If you have lots of small databases, I think I haven't been able to determine if this is actually true But I think like wordpress.com would be an ideal scenario for lots of small databases in top on Kubernetes, right? I'm a wordpress.com customer. I have a business plan I'm pretty sure that my database does not cause their infrastructure a great deal of stress But it's easy for them to isolate my database from all the other customers on wordpress.com, right? It's repeatable. So like if you have an application, it's easy to you know, just Step and repeat that application across a bunch of different users and so forth. It's scalable It's easy to scale applications on Kubernetes if you have the infrastructure And good thing is Kubernetes and the ecosystem are still evolving So the folks who are beavering away at all the different projects around Kubernetes and Kubernetes keep doing new and wonderful things And so they keep adding new and wonderful features that solve old and painful problems, right? The bad if you do this thinking everybody else is doing it But you don't know what you're doing that can be bad It has a very steep learning curve for DBAs and people who have traditionally of I'm an old Linux guy Kubernetes is is different and it's you know, like it's a learning curve for me It'd be like me trying to learn Emacs after using Vim for 24 years a little bit But not that bad and Kubernetes is less resource intensive, but you know, you get the point So Okay, so day two operations This is where it's easy to stand things up when I used to work at red hat and people would talk to me like Why do I want to use rel or open shift instead of like just vanilla upstream? Because it's like a puppy Okay Free isn't puppy. You can get the vanilla upstream Free you can go and outside Walmart and take home a puppy or a kitten But then you got to train it so like if you want a full-fledged service dog You don't want to try to train that puppy. You want to get the service dog that you need to get on with your life, right? So the day two operations you may be good at standing things up But keeping them running and figuring out the problems is a little bit harder And also the ugly truth is that not every kubernetes Environment is exactly the same Okay, so you may run into problems And then the ugly if you have a large pet databases are cto said if you have a large pet database named zoos On its own server. That's probably not a great candidate to put into kubernetes right away Okay, if you have like a four terabyte data set, it's probably not a great candidate for that Database sprawl so every time I've been in the industry for a while and then VMs and then things like open shift and then You know, whatever every time you make it easy for users to self-service and spin things up They do the problem is they don't spin them back down again So you can very easily get into database sprawl and some things where You have a lot of stuff going on in your environment that you may not be aware of Okay, there are also memory limits and getting resourcing right. So, you know making sure that you have your resource tuning and everything can be very difficult Performance may suffer For things like network latency and resource isolation You may have some performance issues that you weren't anticipating or used to On you know, if you're moving from VMs or bare metal database You may run into some things that you weren't expecting. So there are some gotchas. Okay So the real question isn't are the containers ready for a production database? It's Is your production database ready for kubernetes? Have you architected things correctly to run in kubernetes or does it match? So there is a partial solution to a lot of these problems and that's kubernetes operators So how many folks are familiar with operators? All right fewer than I expected but i'm glad for that. So, um So kubernetes operators are basically base basic they're basically extensions to kubernetes that let you Utilize custom resources Manage applications complexity. Basically. It's like mega scripting for kubernetes, right? It's basically you can hide a lot of complexity in The operator and make it easy for people to deploy things and operate things Um with operators. So you can do things like deploying a service performing backups and restores Which is real important when you're talking about databases You can do upgrades and provision storage and scale applications and all sorts of wonderful Things when you're working with kubernetes operators Um, and this is basically just some of the things that you can deal with with operators and so forth. So, you know monitoring backups updates encryption all these things are available to you much more easily So basically it hides the complexity. It lets you simplify the deployment and it simplifies day two operations Percona offers several operators for things like mysql clustering and so forth So we've got some experience with doing these things and are still learning Again, i'll go and promote data on kubernetes Community they're working on an operator matrix to talk about the maturity of different operators for working with data On kubernetes. So if your company your organization You personally are working with kubernetes and operators and are interested in data on kubernetes I'd really recommend checking out that community. It is a vendor neutral Pooling of people coming together to solve these stateful application problems. Okay So and this is kind of the capability levels. So, you know, this is how you would look at your operators Like can I just do an install? Can I just throw something out? to to kubernetes Level two. Can I do upgrades? Can I deploy something and keep it running and keep it updated? Full life cycle level three basically like if I look at an operator and it can do all of these things um backup recovery Failover i'm at level three if I can get deep insights into my application which you want if you're running serious databases on there Then you want a level four or better operator and Basically level five is going to give you the auto scaling. It's going to give you all of the goodness tuning Detect abnormalities all of that goodness. Okay All of that said kubernetes isn't always the answer as I said some databases just should not be migrated To kubernetes if you have a really big hefty legacy database Keep it outside kubernetes figure out how you're going to get your applications to talk to it Size guidelines. So this is a fun story again. I'm not as hands-on as a lot of the folks Maybe in this room and certainly not as the dba's and folks that I work with at prokona and I tossed out the question It's always fun when you ask a bunch of technical people a question like Tell me like I have a concrete question. Give me a concrete answer. You know what you know what the next two words you're going to get are It depends. Thank you. Yes. It depends which is everyone's least favorite Answer to a question. I was like now. I know how my teenager feels when they asked me a question like can I do this? Well, it depends So same thing asking everybody like, all right I'm going to go do this talk. I'm going to talk to customers. I'm going to be booth, you know And I know people are going to ask me what's the size limit for databases on kubernetes Exactly So I did manage to extract kind of a consensus around like if your database is a terabyte or larger Maybe think about no, okay, if it's four terabytes or larger Definitely you probably do not want to be doing that with traditional databases now. There may be some things I'm not an expert on every single database. I'm not an expert on most databases But like if you look at something like maybe cockroach db Which is a cloud native database that may be suited for larger datasets because it's architected for kubernetes But if you're looking at my sequel or a postgres or something like that Probably not a good candidate if you have individual databases of that size okay, so basically If you have kubernetes expertise in your organization, if you have smaller databases You need the automation and scaling And you're comfortable with and going to use operators to deploy these things It's doable might even be a good idea. Okay If you are new to kubernetes if you have huge databases if you are performance sensitive if you're doing manual deploys Is not a good idea for you to try to use databases in kubernetes in production. Okay And that's it. That is my whole talk that I managed to get through in 23 minutes, which uh Kind of a personal best time wise. So, um, are there any questions? Um, or comments or anything Yes, sir Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. Um, yes, please use the microphone. I appreciate that Anna. Thank you So do you foresee any progress in the future for that? Yeah. Oh, absolutely um, I I think that these things will evolve in both directions. I think that, um Companies like, you know, ours will keep working on databases to make them better suited for for kubernetes And I think the kubernetes community Here's companies saying we want to run all of our stuff in kubernetes Not just some of it and they're going to keep working towards that. So yes, absolutely We've made a lot of progress. I mean this would have um, when I was I mean only when open shift was first Ported over to kubernetes and everything that would have been completely bonkers to want to try to do that But yeah, we made a lot of progress and I think we'll keep doing that. That's what open source does, right? so Any other questions or anything? It was that bad No, all right. Well, uh, thank you everybody again for turning up on a friday afternoon. I appreciate your time and attention I hope you have a good rest of the conference and thanks for being here. Thanks the organizers and uh, have a good rest of your weekend