The data revolution – characterised by the transition to big data, open data and new digital data infrastructures  – is projected to make an astonishing 44 billion terabytes of digital data and information available by the end of 2020 . Despite this plethora of information now available to us, about 1 billion people in 140 countries still feel insecure about their land and property rights .
If we only get recognition of our Individual Forest Rights (IFR) over the land under the Forest Rights Act 2006,we will get out of the cycle of poverty."
This is the story of how dozens of communities in Mozambique are mapping and documenting their own land rights. "A New Hope" is the winner of the Land Portal's Second Data Story Contest, and is authored by the team at Terra Firma Mozambique.
This article was originally published through CSDS (Center for Social Development Studies) at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. It can be found at: https://www.csds-chula.org/publications/2020/4/28/critical-nature-are-chinas-dams-on-the-mekong-causing-downstream-drought-the-importance-of-scientific-debate