Community mapping · Aotearoa
Maps for the people who look after the land.
Working maps for community and environmental groups, built on New Zealand’s open public data and the groups’ own records from the field. Prototypes, test groups and experiments, collected in one place.
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NZ Map LabFramework
The core toolset. A desktop map of free public layers — LINZ aerials back to 1979, LiDAR, DOC and council data, iNaturalist — plus a phone form for field records that works offline and suggests species from photos.
- Map nz-map-lab.pages.dev
- Phone form nz-map-lab.pages.dev/add/
- Explore in 3D nz-map-lab.pages.dev/explore/
- Presentation maplabs.co.nz/presentation/
- Code github.com/richardram-ai/nz-map-lab
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Ruahine MapsTest group
The first group using the framework: walking access across Ruahine Forest Park, and wilding pine removal around Kashmir Road — what’s cleared, what’s still to do, and where it’s growing back.
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Manawatū LabExperiments
A sandbox for ideas across the Manawatū-Whanganui region: Google 3D, live river levels, earthquakes, DOC land and tracks, satellites overhead. Small experiments, each kept or dropped with a note.
Open, credited public data only — from LINZ, DOC, regional councils, OpenStreetMap and iNaturalist — with each source acknowledged on the map it appears in. Made by Richard Ram.
New to the idea? Start with the Community Mapping Framework presentation — what the maps do and how groups use them.