A Discussion on the Ethics of Mapping Place Names for Riverine Forests in Tana River, Kenya

We are an international group of researchers and conservationists with expertise in biological anthropology, environmental studies, international development, spatial sciences, and community-centered conservation. With over thirty years of combined research and lived experience in the Tana River region of Kenya, local place names for forests and woodlands have been shared with us through personal interactions, participatory mapping workshops, and other community workshops. We present an ongoing discussion about the ethics of publishing local names of sections of riverine forest patches and other locales, especially without inter- and intra-community agreement on these names. This conversation is especially critical for sustainable forest resource utilization, human-wildlife conflict, and biodiversity conservation. We present cartographic options and spatial analysis methods to reconcile the already-published names with the locally-named places and to preserve the privacy of villagers’ activities. Also important are the implications for land ownership, rights, and control that claiming place names may have in this region at this time in history as land rights are presently being negotiated between different ethnic groups and clans. We explore a potential for harmonizing a naming system built upon consensus within the many invested Kenyan communities and anchored in their traditional way of naming places. We acknowledge that an ethical approach would be to publish names used by local people, but this is complicated by lack of local consensus.