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by Archie Carr
III
El Pilar is a major
Maya archeological site with components located on either side of the
Belize-Guatemala frontier. This site presents an opportunity to explore
the concept of "multiple use" of the natural resources of the greater
Maya Forest in ways that have not yet been attempted. Success in such
an endeavor would provide benefits to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize that
envelop, countries with direct responsibility for management and conservation
of the Maya forest, the largest contiguous tropical forest remaining in
Mesoamerica.
As with many of the
archeological treasures of the Maya forest, El Pilar is situated within
a standing forest. On the Guatemalan side, the surrounding forest is extremely
extensive. On the Belizean side, forest cover is limited to the immediate
vicinity of the archeological structures themselves, and gives way quickly
to an agricultural landscape in all directions east of the north-south
oriented frontier of the Petén.
The site itself is
protected in both countries. In Belize, El Pilar is a designated Archeological
Reserve. The surrounding landscape is mostly government owned, but may
be designated as a Special Development Area (SDA) . In Guatemala, El Pilar,
like all such sites, is protected as "national patrimony" surrounded by
forest within the Maya Biosphere Reserve under the jurisdiction of CONAP.
Considering both sides of the frontier at once, it is possible to conceive
of the El Pilar site in conventional park management terms as a strictly
protected "nuclear zone" surrounded by a "buffer zone" to be used in ways
compatible with biodiversity conservation, including research and development.
In recent years,
archeological research at El Pilar has begun to illuminate the economics
and organization of the ancient Maya culture and society. Although it
remains clear that maize was an essential and abundant staple in the diet
of the apparently very large, dense populations of people living in the
Classic Period, the findings at El Pilar suggest that the landscape of
those times was by no means an endless monoculture of corn. It has become
increasingly apparent that corn cultivation was balanced with extraction
from natural forests and from "managed" forests for food, fibers, building
materials and fuel, essential to the lives of the inhabitants of the Maya
forest. Interpretation of archaeological surveys of settlements and other
artifacts indicates that the Maya had developed sense of "land- use capability."
It becomes an inescapable conclusion that the Maya had evolved a lore
or science that took account of soil chemistry and structure, slope, drainage,
micro-climate, forest composition and ecological succession. From these
insights, the Maya developed complex and strategic uses of the landscape
in the past.
Are there lessons
to be learned from the ancient Maya that would be helpful to the survival
of modern society &emdash; whether in the Maya forest, or elsewhere
in the world? Did the Maya achieve a balance with nature? To answer the
question is to confront a perplexing paradox. Whereas, unlike the deserts
of Mesopotamia and other Mediterranean foci of civilization, the Maya
forest is today one of the great forests of the Neotropics, but the Maya
themselves, the civilization, does not survive.
Leaving that paradox
unresolved, it is valid to consider that a sophisticated land use evolved
in the ancient Maya forest that was maintained for centuries; and for
centuries was able to support one of the highest densities of human populations
living in the New World. The proposal suggests that there are lessons
to be learned from the ancient Maya&emdash;lessons of contemporary
utility to life in and around the Maya forest, and, potentially, of both
academic and practical importance in understanding the evolution and decline
of the Maya civilization.
Contemporary
slash and burn techniques use chainsaws as opposed to the stone
tools of the past  |
Research
at the Belizean component of El Pilar has already established a living
model of a house compound where a Maya family once thrived. With both
demonstration and research values, the site will include plots of cultivation
of staples like maize, but also, near the dwellings, plants of use,
such as herbs, medicines and even ornamentals. On a broader scale, the
model aldea or village will include a "forest garden." This term suggests
that forests were manipulated on a scale that was much more extensive
than the patio or immediate surroundings of a house. The maintenance
of forest gardens by the Maya suggests that trees and plants with certain
values were "mapped" and preserved for those uses. It suggests that
forests were possibly "enriched," to use a contemporary term in forest
management. Enrichment may call for the planting of desirable trees,
and even deliberately removing less desirable species to give competitive
advantage to the valued types. The forest garden implies rotating milpa,
or slash and burn agriculture, a practice which results in a mosaic
of more and less mature serial stages of forest recovery. Importantly,
classical ecology states that the net productivity of young forest is
greater than a mature forest. If evidence suggest that the Maya were
aware of this principle of energetics, did they manage for it, consciously?
Unconsciously?
Given that large domesticated
animals are unheard of in the Maya culture, it may be assumed that, beyond
the essential crops of maize, beans, and squash, some fraction of the
protein requirements of the human population was derived from wildlife.
To the degree that this is true then, a form of wildlife management is
not implausible as an admixture to the forest management suggested above.
Management in this case could mean as little as official recognition of
a certain forest or forest type as productive for game, and actively protected
for that purpose.
The landscape suggested
by current research and conjecture taken from those early studies is that
the Maya forest was never a vast sea of corn and humanity, as one might
expect from the alleged magnitude of the human population of the Classic
Period (c. 3 million). Instead, the region was probably a mosaic of vegetative
cover, ranging from open fields to closed canopy forests. In fact, assuming
rotational milpa agriculture, and an abundance of fallow, recovering plots,
forests, as opposed to plantations, probably dominated the scene. Such
a landscape, combined with the absence of modern weapons, can easily predict
the presence, even abundance, of vertebrate wildlife species that today
are considered endangered or very vulnerable to extirpation.
At El Pilar, these
observations and hypotheses can be tested. Owing to pre-existing management
criteria for the land surrounding the archeological sites, large-scale,
long-term manipulation schemes can be introduced that will allow immediate
benefits to local people (harvests of forest products, for example) and
invaluable experimental data.
It is proposed that
an area of several thousand hectares on both sides of the frontier become
incorporated as an experimental "landscape" for research into sustainable
land use in the Maya forest. The area and, especially, the configuration
of the proposed research polygon is not given here. Importantly, it would
include substantial areas of highly "disturbed" cattle land on the Belizean
side, and the rural communities found therein. Communities in Belize and
Guatemala would be drawn into the experimental process, becoming integral
to it.
At the risk of speculating,
the genre of research expected for the area could be called landscape
ecology. This would be guided by the findings and predictions of Maya
archeology to form a rare interdisciplinary relationship. Initially, it
would be necessary to describe the ecology of the designated polygon in
some detail. Relationships between major components of the landscapes,
such as seed dispersal, pollination patterns, and animal migration, would
be defined. With such fundamental baseline data in place, manipulative
experiments could begin. These would range from basic timber extraction,
as called for in the current Guatemalan forestry concessions, to voluntary
modifications to cattle grazing regimens on the Belizean side. With the
scientific community present and sensitized to the strengths, weaknesses
and aspirations of the local people, it is entirely appropriate to seek
at El Pilar a community-scale experimental design.
Meanwhile, at the
heart of the polygon would be the protected archeological sites in both
countries, and development and interpretation programs are underway or
contemplated for them. It is expected that gradually the educational attractions,
combined with the growth of traditional archeological research, and research
into landscape ecology and land use, would bring increased international
prestige to the site of El Pilar. Importantly, it will also bring new
and eagerly-sought economic investments into this very impoverished region.
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