Gregor MacLennan, has worked with indigenous communities throughout the Amazon Basin on land rights issues, the impacts of extractive industries, and supporting indigenous peoples’ right to self determination.
Gregor has a background in both anthropology and mathematics and has worked extensively in Peru, Ecuador and Guyana to support and train communities to use GPS and GIS to map their territory and document environmental harm. He has worked on mobile, web and desktop apps in JavaScript and React(Native) as well as Node.js server infrastructure. He has been a lead developer on the peer-to-peer database that underlies the CoMapeo platform.
Prior to Awana Digital, Gregor worked in Peru for 7 years as co-founder and co-director of Shinai, a grass-roots non-profit organization, helping communities map their territory and resource use, and set up a community-run environmental monitoring system for Achuar and Quechua communities affected by contamination from oil drilling. Gregor moved to California in 2009 and worked for 4 years as Peru Program Coordinator for Amazon Watch, where he coordinated media campaigns, worked with extractive industry investors and shareholder, developed policy documents, and led a campaign to successfully stop Talisman from drilling for oil in Achuar territory in a remote and biodiverse area of Amazon rainforest in Peru.
Gregor joined Awana Digital in 2013 and started the tool-building and technology program. He is now based in Hastings, UK.
