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This case study describes the 'Enhancing Women’s Land Tenure through Shea Tree Mapping' project, which uses geo-tagging and digital mapping to provide evidence of assets for women shea producers in West Africa. By recording the location of shea trees and linking them to the women who manage them, the project aims to overcome financial barriers, improve access to productive assets like motorised tricycles, and provide legitimacy to women's co-operatives in the eyes of policymakers and investors.

This briefing describes an 'extreme citizen science' approach to digital mapping in Ethiopia's Lower Omo region. The project utilized the Sapelli platform to enable indigenous collaborators, regardless of their literacy levels, to co-design and produce maps of local land use and resources to challenge authoritative or machine-generated representations of their territory.