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 | |  |  |  | | Develop the El Pilar archaeological site as a model for conservation, sustainable development and cooperation | | Anabel
Ford has spent almost two decades bringing together diverse
disciplines, priorities and people at El Pilar, a vast ancient Maya
city straddling the border between Belize and Guatemala. With her
multidisciplinary team of researchers, this American archaeologist and
anthropologist is developing the site into a model for conservation,
sustainable development and cooperation. She is now closer than ever to
realising her ultimate vision for a single, unified El Pilar. To
achieve this, she has implemented the El Pilar Program, a strategic
plan that transcends a troubled international boundary and establishes
the long-term foundation for preserving the site’s cultural heritage. |
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Archaeologists
have searched for decades to explain the rapid demise of Maya
civilisation. But not Dr Anabel Ford, a 48-year-old research
archaeologist and anthropologist at the University of California at
Santa Barbara, who has dedicated most of her professional life to
establishing what made the Maya so successful for so long.
Ford, who was selected as an Associate Laureate in the Rolex Awards
2000, admits that she has charted an unconventional path in order to
understand the ancient Maya – including spending nine months in 1978
mapping a 30-kilometre route through dense Guatemalan jungle. |
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Jungle fires in Petén, Guatemala have caused much damage. Ford wants to conserve forest resources.
©Susan Gray |
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"Relying
on local knowledge, I came to appreciate the powers of the environment
and how much the ancient Maya had to have learned to manage over four
successful millennia," Ford says. "By the end of that year, I had
gathered not only valuable data on Maya settlement patterns, but an
experience that was to influence all my thinking thereafter."
Ford spends half of every year in the tropical forests of Central
America, seeking answers to questions about the society and lifestyle
of the former inhabitants of El Pilar, a vast Maya archaeological site
straddling the border between Belize and Guatemala – countries with a
territorial dispute dating from colonial times. |
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Her
approach at El Pilar breaks with archaeological tradition, in that she
concentrates less on excavating monuments and more on the evidence of
ancient farming methods. Ford maintains that the successful development
of Maya civilisation was achieved primarily through the knowledge of
its farmers and not, as is widely believed, through warfare. She also
disputes the common belief that the Maya relied largely on
slash-and-burn cultivation. Given that the region was up to 10 times
more densely populated than it is now, she argues, this would have soon
led to soil degradation and famine.
For the past decade, Ford
has been coordinating the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Fauna and
Flora, a project based at the El Pilar site. In addition to cataloguing
plants and animals, she and her colleagues are gradually recreating a
forest garden – a type of multi-layered polyculture of vegetables,
grains and shrubs growing in the sun and in the shade of fruit trees. |
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Ford trekking on "La Brecha Anabel", a Maya trail linking Tikal and Yaxhá that she reforged in 1978.
©Susan Gray |
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She
wants to demonstrate to farmers in Belize and Guatemala, some of whom
are direct descendants of the Maya, how their ancestors’ methods
worked. Forest garden techniques, she contends, not only reverse the
effects of deforestation and environmental degradation, which are
fairly widespread in the region, but they also provide a concrete
example of sustainable agriculture and enhance the pride of the
indigenous people.
But the most significant aspect of her El
Pilar Program, Ford insists, is the local collaborative component. "The
population needs to maintain an active voice in order for the project
to be fully achieved. Hence the formation, in both Belize and
Guatemala, of the cooperative association Amigos de El Pilar. Aimed at
developing community enterprises in tourism and agriculture", Ford
explains, "it will increase villagers" cultural links and economic
stake in the reserve, while incorporating their wisdom into the vision
for El Pilar." |
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Cacao, an important Maya food. With model gardens Ford is showing how the Mayas used agriculture.
©Susan Gray |
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Ford with Heriberto Cocom, advisor to the forest garden project, near Bullet Tree Falls, Belize.
©Susan Gray |
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Ford
has also extended her skills for promoting cooperation beyond the local
community, by helping bridge long-standing political differences
between Guatemala and Belize. Following talks between the two countries
from 1996 to 1998, at which she played a pivotal role, there is a move
to consider the entire 16-square-kilometre site as common territory.
Not surprisingly, Ford’s efforts have attracted praise from both sides
of the divide. Belize’s Prime Minister Said Musa admits to being very
impressed with her work: "Not only has she brought life to many of the
secrets of the ancient Maya," he says, "but her commitment is a
marvellous experience for the country." |
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And
on the other side of the border, Elena Diez Pinto, director of the
on-governmental organisation Vision Guatemala, whose mission is to
increase community participation in the political process, is just as
enthusiastic: "Thanks to Anabel’s tenacity," she says, "we are now able
to imagine the plans that she has outlined. Not many people could see
the potential for creating a friendship park on a troubled border, but
if anyone can do it, she can."
"The El Pilar Program is now
at a critical juncture", says Ford. "The Rolex Award will provide
essential recognition and basic funding to firmly unite our diverse
team across borders and disciplines so that, together, we can bring the
’one El Pilar’ model to fruition." |
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Dr Anabel Ford
UCSB office
Email: ford@marc.ucsb.edu
ISBER/ MesoAmerican Research Center
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-2150
Email: elpilar@btl.net
Website: www.marc.ucsb.edu and www.espmaya.org
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