This article is a reflection on Digital Humanities project design, and a commentary on the way practice often falls short of theoretical Ideals. Its criticisms are rooted in personal experience of a particular context: mapping conservation areas in the Northeastern Brazilian Amazon. The Supervisor or explores the theoretical Ideals of engaged participatory project design in digital counter-mapping initiatives and measures the ability of its own project to live up to that Ideals. Through a process of critical reflection, and an exploration of the theoretical literature in critical mapping studies, science, technology and society studies and political ecology, she Describes the ways in which countermapping can unseat hegemonic discourse for conservation and development schemes in the Amazon, while highlighting the pragmatic limitations that researchers may face in designing participatory counter-mapping projects. Engagement with the tensions between theory and practice in politically engaged research, the exporter or suppliers a critical analysis of her own work as an example of imperfect project design, with the hope that that a reflection may be used and generalised for researchers of the Pitfalls in planning engaged collaborative research projects in the field of digital mapping. Summary This article represents a reflection on the project design of digital humanities, as well as a comment on how practice does not reach theoretical ideals. These criticisms stem from personal experience in a particular context: mapping of conservation areas in the Northeast Amazon of Brazil. The author explores the theoretical ideals of participatory project design engaged in digital counter-mapping initiatives and assesses the ability of his own project to achieve such ideals. Through a critical reflection process and exploration of theoretical literature in the fields of critical mapping studies, science, technology and society studies and political ecology, the author describes ways in which counter-mapping can invalidate hegemonic speech for conservation and development programmes in the Amazon, highlighting the pragmatic limitations that researchers may encounter during the process of designing counter-mapping projects. Committed to tensions between theory and practice relating to politically committed research, the author offers a critical analysis of his own work as an example of an imperfect project design, hoping that such a reflection could be useful and widespread for researchers on their guardians about the difficulties involved in planning participatory research projects in the field of digital mapping. Keywords: counter-mapping; Brazil; Amazone; Google Earth; critical mapping; political ecology