What if a map could show not only where things are, but how a landscape is lived? In Malaysia’s Setiu Wetlands, one of LRG’s 2026 Research Fund projects is developing a new approach to mapping the often-invisible connections between ecology, culture, knowledge and livelihoods.
Led by Assoc. Prof. LAr. Dr Khalilah Zakariya of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), the project introduces Deep Biocultural Cartography: an approach that combines spatial mapping with photographs, stories, memories, material journeys and other forms of knowledge to reveal relationships that conventional maps can struggle to represent.
For Khalilah and her team, those relationships are fundamental to understanding landscape. A patch of sedge grass, for example, is not simply vegetation on a map. Follow it through harvesting, preparation and weaving and it becomes part of a much larger story involving wetland ecology, traditional knowledge, craft, livelihoods and cultural identity. Likewise, a clam gathered from the wetlands carries with it knowledge about where and when to find it, how to collect and prepare it, and the place it occupies in everyday life.
Setiu Wetlands provides a particularly rich landscape in which to develop the methodology. Ecological resources and local livelihoods remain closely connected through fishing, foraging, craft and other practices, while the Wetland School of Setiu, founded by local NGO and Social Enterprise Ecoswed, already brings conservation, education, culture and community livelihoods together.
We spoke to Khalilah about mapping what is usually invisible, following materials through landscapes, co-producing knowledge with communities, and why research should return something useful to the people and places from which it comes.
Congratulations on receiving an LRG Research Fund award. What does this recognition mean for you and your research team?
For us, receiving the LRG Research Fund award gives us the opportunity to explore a new way of mapping landscape, particularly the biocultural networks, connections and narratives between its natural and cultural resources.
It also allows us to learn about the Setiu Wetlands, a place in our own country, and, more importantly, to learn from the local communities who know and interact with the landscape.
Through the Research Fund, we also have the opportunity to bring these local landscapes and stories to an international audience, particularly the wider landscape academic community. We hope these discoveries will help us better understand what landscapes mean to people, what matters, and what we should be careful not to lose.
Your project introduces the idea of “Deep Biocultural Cartography.” Could you explain what this means and how it differs from conventional mapping?
Conventional mapping often shows us land use, boundaries, locations and what is physically visible on a site. Deep mapping goes beyond that. It tries to make the often-invisible aspects of a landscape visible, such as stories, memories, attachments, experiences and relationships between people and place.
The map itself can also take different forms. It can combine maps with photographs, text, stories, videos and other annotations, and can be something you click, open or even unfold.
For our project, we call this Deep Biocultural Cartography because we are particularly interested in revealing the connections between nature, culture and people’s livelihoods.
These are things that may not appear in conventional maps used for planning and development, but they are important in understanding what a landscape actually means to people. We hope these maps can therefore support decision-making, while also creating greater awareness and appreciation of the landscape.
Many maps tell us where things are. Your project seems more interested in revealing relationships. What kinds of stories become visible when we map landscapes differently?
For example, if we map the vegetation of the wetlands, we can show where the sedge grass grows and its distribution. In another map, perhaps a socio-cultural or tourism map, we may show the woven mats produced by the local community. But what is often missing is the story between them: how the grass becomes the mat, and the people and livelihoods behind that process.
Through deep mapping, we hope to document when and how the grass is harvested, where it is dried, how it is treated, who prepares it, who weaves it and, eventually, how it becomes the finished product. At the same time, we may also learn about the ecological role of the sedge grass within the wetlands.
So what unfolds is both a biological story and a cultural story – and, more importantly, the relationships that connect the two.
The Setiu Wetlands support rich ecological and cultural traditions. What drew you to this landscape as the setting for developing your methodology?
We were drawn to Setiu Wetlands because it is a landscape where nature, culture and livelihoods are closely connected. It is ecologically rich, but at the same time local communities depend on and interact with its natural resources through practices such as fishing, foraging and weaving.
Furthermore, a local NGO and Social Enterprise, Ecoswed, founded the Wetland School of Setiu, which offers nature- and culture-based activities for the public to learn about the wetlands, while also supporting income generation and capacity building for the local community. We see this as a very good model and initiative, where conservation, education, culture and local livelihoods can support one another.
This makes Setiu an interesting place for us to develop the methodology because there are so many relationships that we can trace between ecosystems, resources and people. For us as researchers, it is also an opportunity to learn from the local community and understand Setiu through the knowledge and experiences of the people who live there.
Your research follows the journeys of materials such as Kercut sedge grass and Lokan clams from ecosystem to everyday life. Why are these material biographies such powerful ways of understanding landscape?
Material biographies allow us to follow a natural resource through its entire journey and, through that journey, understand the many relationships that make up a landscape.
For example, Kercut begins as a plant growing within the wetland ecosystem, but once it is harvested, prepared and woven, it becomes part of local knowledge, craft, livelihood and cultural identity.
Similarly, Lokan is not simply a resource found in the wetlands. There are people who know where and when to collect it, the techniques used to find it, how it is prepared and cooked, and how it contributes to everyday life and livelihoods.
By following these journeys, we begin to see landscape not simply as a physical place, but as a network of nature, people, knowledge, culture and economy. I think that is what makes material biographies so powerful: one small resource can reveal a much bigger story about the landscape.
Community members will play a central role in creating the maps themselves. How do participatory mapping and oral histories change both the research process and the final outcomes?
Participatory mapping changes the research process because the community is not simply a source of information. They become part of deciding what is important to map and what stories need to be told.
They know the landscape through their everyday experiences, practices and memories, which we as researchers may not be able to see through observation or spatial data alone.
Oral histories add another layer by helping us understand how the landscape has changed over time, and the knowledge and memories connected to particular places and resources.
So the final maps are not only our interpretation as researchers. They are co-produced with the people who know and experience the landscape, making the outcomes more grounded, meaningful and representative of what the landscape means to the community.
Your project combines GIS with artistic visualisation and narrative. Why is it important to bring science, design and storytelling together rather than relying on maps alone?
Each of these approaches brings a different way of understanding the landscape. GIS gives us spatial and scientific information, design helps us explore how these relationships can be visualised and communicated, while storytelling brings in the voices, memories and experiences of people.
Maps alone can tell us where things are, but they may not always tell us why those places or resources matter. By bringing science, design and storytelling together, we can communicate both tangible and intangible aspects of the landscape.
We hope this makes the research not only useful for planning and decision-making, but also more accessible to the community and wider public, so that people can understand, appreciate and connect with the landscape.
A particularly interesting aspect of your proposal is the commitment to “knowledge return”. Why was it important that the finished maps should become practical resources for the Wetland School of Setiu and local community?
For us, knowledge return is about making sure that the research does not end with an academic publication or stay within the university. The knowledge comes from the community and their landscape, so we feel that something useful should also be returned to them.
By producing the maps as practical resources for the Wetland School of Setiu, they can be used for its nature- and culture-based programmes, education, ecotourism and advocacy. They can help the school communicate the stories and relationships within the wetlands to visitors in a visual and accessible way.
It is also important to us that the maps remain there beyond the duration of the research project, as something the community can continue to use, share and hopefully build upon.
Do you see this methodology being applied to other landscapes in Malaysia—or perhaps internationally—to reveal similarly hidden relationships between people and nature?
Yes, definitely. We see Deep Biocultural Cartography as a methodology that can be adapted to other landscapes where there are strong relationships between natural resources, local knowledge, culture and livelihoods.
Malaysia has many landscapes where these relationships exist, from coastal and riverine communities to agricultural, forest and even urban landscapes, but they may not always be visible in conventional mapping.
Setiu Wetlands gives us the opportunity to develop and test the methodology. From there, we hope it can be adapted to other contexts in Malaysia and internationally.
The specific stories and relationships will, of course, be different in every place, but the principle remains the same: to make visible connections between people and nature that might otherwise be overlooked in how we understand, plan and manage landscapes.
What do you hope policymakers, conservation practitioners and local communities will take away from your work?
We hope our work encourages policymakers and conservation practitioners to look beyond what is immediately visible or represented in conventional maps. Before making decisions about landscape change, we need to understand not only the ecological resources, but also the people, knowledge, livelihoods, memories and cultural practices connected to them.
For local communities, we hope the maps help make visible and strengthen the value of the knowledge and practices they already have, and become something useful for education, advocacy and local initiatives.
We hope the research offers another way of seeing the landscape, so that future decisions are made with a better understanding of what matters, what is connected, and how we should treat these relationships in the future so that we do not lose them.
Finally, if readers remember just one thing about your project, what would you like it to be?
I would like readers to remember that a landscape is more than what we see or locate on a map. Behind its natural resources are ecological processes, people, stories, knowledge, culture and livelihoods, all connected in ways that may not always be visible.
Through our project, we hope to make these connections visible. I would like it to encourage us to ask: What is happening in this landscape, what flows through it, and who does it matter to?
Because when we understand these relationships better, we can also better appreciate what a landscape means, and make more informed decisions about what we should protect and what we should carry forward and sustain for the future.
Making connections visible
The strength of Deep Biocultural Cartography lies in what happens between the conventional categories through which landscapes are often understood. Ecological mapping might identify the distribution of Kercut; cultural documentation might record the finished woven mat. Khalilah and her team are interested in the chain of relationships connecting the two – the landscape that supports the plant, the knowledge through which it is harvested and prepared, the people who weave it, and the cultural and economic life into which the finished object passes.
That ambition is reflected in the project team itself. Alongside Khalilah, the research brings together Assoc. Prof. LAr. Gs. Dr Norhanis Diyana Nizarudin, Asst. Prof. Dr Fadzli Irwan Bahrudin and Asst. Prof. Ts. Dr Rajabi Abdul Razak of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), and Prof. Dr Nor Zalina Harun of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Their combined expertise provides the interdisciplinary foundation needed for a project moving between landscape, ecology, spatial information, visualisation, culture and community knowledge.
Just as importantly, the maps are intended to remain useful after the research has ended. Rather than knowledge travelling in one direction – from landscape and community into an academic output – the commitment to knowledge return means that the resulting resources will remain with the Wetland School of Setiu, where they can support education, ecotourism, advocacy and future community initiatives.
In that sense, the project asks us to reconsider what a map can be. Rather than simply recording the things that occupy a landscape, Deep Biocultural Cartography seeks to reveal the relationships that make that landscape meaningful – and ensure that those relationships become harder to overlook when decisions about its future are made.