Collaborative mapping on sustainable development goals in Latin America UNESCO Global Geopark: A methodological discussion

UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGps) are territories that promote sustainable development through a territorial management plan focusing on education, conservation, and local development. In their guidelines, they establish, among others, the relevance of the territorial bottom-up approach. This implies the active involvement and participation of the local communities on the projects and strategies focusing on sustainable territorial development and management. In this sense, the participatory processes should be one of the main strategies for the progress, analysis and diagnosis on the development and management of the UGGps. On this scope, the use of geographic analysis tools, like interpretative maps of the territory and the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through a collaborative approach, could be an asset for the spatial planning required in the UGGps, reinforced by the local knowledge. One of the main applications that can be implemented in UGGps for the improvement, adaptation, and actualization of the spatial planning and management of the territories is the application of collaborative mapping strategies. This work is an example of a methodological proposal for the spatial diagnosis of the sustainable development in four UGGps of the Latin America and Caribbean Geoparks Network (GeoLAC) through a collaborative mapping process. This should be understood as a map's creation practice by local communities' perception. In addition, it also allows the understanding of the dynamics, evolution, and transformation of the UGGps through community knowledge and citizen science, supporting the improvement of the management plans of each territory. The objective of this methodology is to identify and discuss the spatial and territorial distribution of the “geopark” concept and how different activities related to geoconservation, geoeducation and geotourism, as main axes of the principles of the UGGp, are acting for and contributing to the sustainable development in four UGGps of the GeoLAC. Results allow to define new strategies to involve, in a more homogeneous spatial distribution, the impacts and benefits of the UGGps. The final maps become important tools not only for researchers or managers but also for local communities. This methodology has the potential to become a tool for its application in any UGGp willing to analyze the spatial distribution of the territorial strategies, the activities impact, and the benefits for the sustainable development of its territory. Furthermore, it can be an efficient evaluation tool when applied periodically in the territory, allowing to compare the development and evolution of the spatial impacts and territorial dynamics of the strategies defined by the management structure, calibrated by the vision and perception of the local communities.