Donna Miranda-Begay is a CGIA Board Member – Tribal Representative. Her Tribal affiliation is Tubatulabal, Paiute, Tule River Yokut, and Dine’. She is founder of the new non-profit CA Tribal GIS.
In working with both California Native American Tribes (federally and non-federally recognized) and State government, Donna recognized the need to have Tribal Lands on public government maps. She worked with several state Tribal Liaisons who often asked, “how can we better work with Tribes?”. Donna’s response would be “place tribal lands on your department maps, this will help with both Tribes and your department program staff knowing what Tribes are in your service areas”.
In 2017 and 2021, Donna was recognized by the CA Tribal Chairpersons Association through State Assembly and Senate resolutions for her Tribal Leadership, Environmental Justice, and Cultural and Natural Resources preservation efforts.
During 2005-2006, Donna was CIO for Jackson Rancheria Band of Miwoks. She was responsible for developing strategic and operational IT plan for the entire rancheria. She visited other existing gaming tribes to learn more about how GIS based systems could help with public safety, land management, and casino player management.
Her vision for CA Tribal GIS is to have both on-site and mobile GIS knowledge-building options for CA Native American Tribes. She has identified current GIS technology needs to include: GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) services to help with historic Tribal cemetery boundary review, Introduction to GIS (Hands on and on-site), current LiDAR mapping data, and Native American cultural monitoring. The website is www.catribalgis.org
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