Technology is not usually kind to tradition. But in the case of the Surui tribe of the Brazilian Amazon, it's helping to preserve their culture and protect their home.

Five years ago the tribe reached out to Google for help annotating Google Earth with markers and photographs that show the Surui villages, hunting grounds, sacred sites, and cultural sites as well as areas where they've found illegal mining and logging incursions onto their land. The goal was to raise global awareness of the Surui people's struggle to preserve their land and culture, by reaching the more than 200 million Google Earth users around the world. The completed project launched this week at the Rio+20 conference in Brazil. Read more about it here.

We're looking forward to seeing what other cultural maps appear on Google Earth in the near future.