Belize, Looks Untamed but is Not
12/6/97
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Headline: Belize, Looks Untamed but is Not
Source: Earth Times News Service
Date: 12/6/97
Author: John D. Ivanko
Copyright 1997: The Earth Times All rights reserved.
Belize, lovely and green, looks untamed. It's not
BELIZE CITY--Iridescent green parrots and bright
keel-billed toucans soar overhead. A humid tropical
breeze works its way up the steamy mountainside, a
mountainside still inhabited by the descendants of the
ancient Maya. Dense vegetation layers the forests;
bromeliads, heleconia and epiphytes cling to or drop from the
canopy. It all appears so wild--untamed by a human's touch.
But it's not.
Cacao, coffee, banana, avocado, papaya, coconut and almond
trees thrive side-by-side with endemic species that provide
food and habitat for a wide variety of wildlife: Baird's
tapir, ocelot, jaguar, red rabbit and many kinds of birds. A
partnership with nature has taken place on this 150-acre
parcel of moist forest which makes up the Belize Agroforestry
Research Station (BARC) in the southern part of Belize near
the Maya village of San Pedro Columbia. Like a beacon in a
storm, BARC illuminates and inspires a path of human
development which serves--rather than exploits--nature's
bounty. The Agroforestry Research Station, locally referred
to as "Mr. Mark's Place," is a bold experiment to identify,
document and preserve the rich diversity of the land.
The concept is called agroforestry and employs many of the
principles of permaculture design originally developed by an
Australian, Bill Mollison. These concepts seek to meet human
needs without compromising--if not abetting the regeneration
of--the natural ecosystem. The long-term objective is to
maintain the health and self-perpetuating forest ecosystem
while meeting the needs of the local human population.
Escaping the notice of many, the indigenous knowledge and the
richness of the biotic community tucked away in the Belizean
jungles are threatened by global progress, or at least the
machinery that supports it. Deforestation, destructive
land-use practices and loss of wildlife through poaching and
habitat encroachment are as serious a concern here as in
Belize's neighboring countries of Guatemala, Mexico or
Honduras.
Established in 1989 by the Tropical Conservation Foundation,
the Agroforestry Research Station has set its target on one
thing: the preservation of diversity, both biological and
cultural. The project was spearheaded by Mark Cohen, an
enthnobotanist and the present Director of BARC, aided by a
close-knit circle of researchers, visionaries and local Maya.
BARC supports research, educational workshops and hands-on
conservation initiatives, hosting groups of students,
herbologists and even missionaries who are striving to learn
to work with, rather than against, the processes of the
natural world. Following in the shaman's footsteps, BARC is
pioneering a new approach to living and learning, using
traditional wisdom that has been passed down for generations.
"It took tens of millions of years for medicinal plant
compounds to evolve, tens of thousands of years for people to
learn how to use them, and both the plants and knowledge
might be gone within 20 years," writes Howard Rheingold on
the topics of indigenous wisdom and the disappearing
rainforests in the "Whole Earth Sourcebook."
Sowing the seeds for the future, BARC serves as a conduit for
conservation, education and further research, which
translates to, among other things, a plant nursery, the
perpetuation and storehouse of native people's knowledge,
seed collections in an herbarium and the implementation of
agroforestry: a system incorporating trees and herbaceous
plants in a regenerative method that is harmonious with the
natural ecosystem. One course, for example, has been running
for eight years in conjunction with Ohio University's
Integrative Tropical Botany; it examines natural regenerative
designs and how the developed world threatens those designs.
Alternative strategies are then discussed for the
conservation of biological and cultural diversity.
"On every continent we are poised on the edge of a razor,"
says Cohen, who has seen more of the world first-hand than
most. "We all need to recognize ourselves through nature and
nature's patterns. It's an ancient Maya way and this research
station seeks to better understand how cultural diversity is
a prerequisite for biological diversity."
Cohen quietly inspects the drying racks full of recently
harvested bitter-sweet organically grown cacao, a raw form
that will eventually be roasted, ground and transformed into
chocolate and sold in the US under the label of Paul Newman's
Organic Chocolate Bars, among other brands. Part of the
Tropical Conservation Foundation's mission includes the
promotion of sustainably harvested organic products so that
those people who depend on the income from such an
agroforestry crop can earn a decent living while at the same
time conserving resources. Their resources, it turns out, are
as important to them as to the rest of the planet's
inhabitants, a fact that has only recently gained attention.
Another part of its mission is to demonstrate sustainable
living. A solar panel is used to tap the renewable energy
source of the sun. The design for the simple but comfortable
lodge was based upon the traditional Maya thatched-roof home
and the materials were procured locally. The facility
includes a community kitchen and bunkbeds, and derives its
drinking water from rainwater stored in cisterns. Almost all
the foods are grown locally--and organically.
Earlier in the day, Cohen had described a recent study in
Costa Rica that demonstrated how "shade coffee" could be
grown without the destructive "modern" practices common
throughout Latin America, practices which have led to rapid
deforestation and loss of biodiversity.
"Around the world, I see people creating chemically and
energy-intensive monocultures (the growing of only one type
of edible plant or using land for only one purpose)," says
Cohen. "Too many of us view biodiversity as the enemy . . .
allowing us to destroy that which we care most about."
What BARC, in essence, has done is help in the understanding
of the natural world and, in so doing, understanding
ourselves--like the Maya shaman, the "forest doctor," who
makes his way along the pathways of the forest collecting
medicinal plants that cure the ill in the villages he visits.
Like an unsuspected outcropping surrounded by
cattle-ranching, slash-and-burn agriculture practices,
logging operations and large-scale citrus plantations, the
Belize Agroforestry Research Station, and others like it
throughout the disappearing Central American rainforests,
seems to be serving as a compass for the direction the rest
of the world, sooner or later, will need to venture.
John Ivanko is the author of "The Least Imperfect Path--A
Global Journal for the Future" and recent recipient of the
Outdoor Writers Association of America scholarship.