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Having
already achieved what many considered impossible, 2000 Rolex Associate
Laureate Anabel Ford is gearing up to face new challenges at the
2000-year-old Maya city of El Pilar.
Ford has spent eight years establishing the site as a model for
conservation and co-operation. In so doing, she has forged an
unprecedented alliance between Guatemala and Belize – whose
long-disputed border bisects El Pilar – ensuring that local people have
an active role in running the project.
An anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of California
at Santa Barbara, Dr Ford has concentrated much of her research on
trying to understand why the Maya were successful, rather than
determining why they died out. She has established that Maya farming
techniques not only reverse the effects of deforestation, but also
provide an example of workable, sustainable agriculture.
Ford spends at least four months every year at El Pilar. Her
research includes developing ancient land-use models, analysing pottery
and mapping architecture. She is also developing a collaborative
project on the “biocomplexity” of El Pilar, investigating the complex
inter-relationship between settlement, land use, soils, geology, water
availability, topography, flora and fauna, and human systems. “We
intend to model and explain the past, in order to generate scenarios
that can be used in conservation designs for the future,” she explains.
Two recent developments recognise Ford’s considerable achievements
at El Pilar, as well as promising to help take the project forward.
In June 2001 three Santa Barbara businessmen, impressed by Ford’s
work at El Pilar, established Exploring Solutions Past: Maya Forest
Alliance (ESP). This non-profit organisation, of which Dr Ford is
president, is aimed at diversifying the fundraising capabilities of the
project while enhancing the university research component, “as some
people prefer to provide donations to a focused, non-profit body,
rather than a diverse educational institution”.
The second development, also established in June 2001, is the
Consultative Council for El Pilar (CoCEP), a collaborative advisory
body comprising representatives from the governments of Guatemala and
Belize, together with individuals from non-governmental organisations,
academia, community groups and the private sector. Managed by a
steering committee, of which Ford is a member, the council will, she
says, “spearhead further development at the site, and keep both
governments aware of their commitments”.
Ford sees CoCEP as a potential vehicle to help El Pilar at many
levels, from attracting funding to boosting tourism. And although the
local population, a number of whom are direct descendants of the Maya,
now believe that El Pilar is their heritage, they still need assistance
in making themselves heard.
“In many ways we’ve achieved our goals at El Pilar,” Ford reflects,
“in other ways we’ve not even started.” And so, for the foreseeable
future, she will continue dividing her time between the University of
California and this important archaeological site. |
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Latest News (2002)