Useful video: 3D StoryMaps for kaupapa Māori GIS mapping

The June 2026 Ngā Poutama Matawhenua wānanga, Kōrero ā-Mahere: 3D StoryMaps for Kaupapa Māori GIS Mapping, focused on bringing maps, photos, data and kōrero together in an accessible digital story.

Open the current LINZ recording/resource link

The session was held on Friday 19 June 2026 and covered practical StoryMaps techniques rather than requiring advanced GIS experience. The more important point, though, is that the technology should follow the kōrero rather than determine it. A 3D scene, fly-through or swipe map is useful when it helps people understand relationships between places, whenua, awa, maunga, change through time or the sequence of a story. It is not automatically better because it is more visually impressive.

What the session covers

The wānanga uses practical examples including 3D fly-throughs between places, historical and current imagery, change in awa, moana and mahinga kai over time, taiao restoration and kaitiakitanga mahi, climate and hazard communication, swipe maps, map tours and StoryMap sidecars.

For kaupapa Māori work, the strongest use of these tools is when the structure of the digital story reflects the relationships that actually matter. A sequence of places may follow an awa, a historic journey, a pattern of occupation, a restoration project or another narrative defined by the people telling it. The software can help carry that story, but it should not impose a generic tourism-style tour simply because a template makes that easy.

Examples you can open now

The Matawhenua StoryMaps collection contains working examples that complement the recording.

Creating 3D Flythroughs for Cultural Narratives is a short tutorial showing how to use a sidecar and 3D web scene to move a reader through a sequence of places.

Whenua Māori 3D Flythrough provides an example of the resulting experience.

Applications of Imagery for kaupapa Māori GIS mapping demonstrates before-and-after imagery, environmental change, cultural heritage and disaster examples from around Aotearoa.

Te Whakapapa o ngā Awa shows how freshwater datasets, catchments, monitoring and narrative can be combined in one resource.

Story before software

A StoryMap can make spatial information much easier to understand because the reader does not have to interpret every layer at once. It can move between scales, combine old and new imagery, bring photographs and maps together, and explain why a place matters as well as where it is.

That power also creates responsibility. A beautifully designed public story can make information travel much further than the original project. Before publishing, decide whose story is being told, who has authority over the material, what should be public and what should remain with the people or organisation holding it. Rangatiratanga in a digital storytelling context includes the ability to decide not only how the story is presented, but what is not presented at all.

The sequence matters too. Whakapapa and relationships between places cannot be reduced to a list of map stops. Where a story depends on particular ordering, context or relationships, the StoryMap should preserve that logic rather than flatten it into a generic set of points.

StoryMaps should be the presentation layer

A StoryMap does not need to contain the authoritative source data. A safer pattern is to maintain the source information in a controlled GIS or data store, create an approved view or generalised layer, then use that published layer inside the story.

That keeps the storytelling experience separate from the system of record and makes it easier to control what is visible to public, partner and internal audiences. It also supports kaitiakitanga over information because people can update, withdraw or generalise the public view without surrendering the complete source dataset to the publishing platform.

Where the kaupapa involves sensitive places, local histories or information held through particular relationships, the public map should contain only what has been approved for that audience. The fact that 3D can make a place more vivid is exactly why the publication decision needs to come first.

Ako and shared practice

One of the strengths of the Ngā Poutama model is that the learning is not intended to flow only from presenter to participant. People bring their own projects, questions and experience. A technical demonstration may introduce a tool, while the participants determine whether that tool is useful for the mahi they are actually doing.

That reciprocal aspect of ako is important in GIS. The trainer may understand the platform, while somebody else understands the whenua, the environmental issue, the history or the audience. Better mapping comes from those forms of knowledge meeting rather than one pretending to replace the other.

For more examples and the full resource list, see Ngā Poutama Matawhenua videos and StoryMaps.