Many indigenous and non-indigenous communities have used mapping as a tool to protect their forests and territories. We share lessons learned using mobile and desktop based tools in a tropical setting in eastern Panamá, on the Darién forests near the border with Colombia. As part of our UNDP/SGP-funded project "Cartografía de los bosques del pueblo" (cartography of the people's forests) we supported local organizations in Darién, Panamá to map forests that were part of their community reserves. Our goal was to train local technical groups in mapping, where most communities had very limited experience with computers. We used various FOSS applications, including Geopaparazzi (for mobile mapping), Mapeo Desktop (community mapping), Magrit (training), IIAB (local offline servers) and QGIS. We share what worked, what didn't and why and discuss our methodology for community based mapping. Authors and Affiliations – Mir Rodríguez Lombardo, Fundación Almanaque Azul, Panamá Track – Use cases & applications Topic – Indigenous Mapping / Pueblos Originarios Level – 1 - Principiants. No required specific knowledge is needed. Language of the Presentation – English