Culture of Fire: One Guatemalan's Fight Against Slash-and-Burn Farming
8/24/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Culture of fire: One Guatemalan's fight against slash-and-
burn farming
Source: E/The Environmental Magazine
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 24, 1999
Byline: Megan Epler Wood
Don Carlos Mendez has risked his life to preserve endangered forest
lands in Southeastern Guatemala.
In the spring of 1998, Don Carlos Mendez, a legendary fighter for
Guatemalan conservation, was making emergency calls on his radio. The
Mendezes had been enjoying a family dinner when Don Carlos' son called
him to the window. Bright flames lit young seedlings just above their
home in the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve.
The fires outside the Mendezes' window were purposely set; his own
neighbors were burning the reserve to send a signal. Mendez was soon
on the radio begging Defensores de la Naturaleza, a small Guatemalan
nonprofit with a mandate to protect the forest, for assistance.
Little was forthcoming but, fortunately, the fire went out on its own
before much harm could be done.
With the damage exacerbated by an extended El Nio dry season,
Guatemala erupted in a conflagration of fire last spring. Forests that
had never burned in recorded history were going up in flames.
Nearly 850 fires, most of them intentionally set, were recorded in
Guatemala by the end of May. Smoke forced the closing of Guatemala
City's airport, and fires raged over thousands of acres in the
northern Peten region, just 20 miles from the famous Tikal.
Setting fires is a way of life in Guatemala because fire makes the
soil fertile for planting corn. The battle for more land to put food
on the table has traditionally taken precedence over legal boundaries,
and respect for law and order is low in a country recovering from 30
years of civil war.
The Sierra, located in Southeastern Guatemala, protects a unique
variety of five mountain ecosystems, and provides refuge to the world-
famous iridescent green resplendent quetzal. The Mendez's small farm
is perched in a precarious position at the gateway to the reserve's
core, which receives the highest level of protection from development.
Fires destroyed more than 25,000 acres of the reserve in the spring of
1998, and Defensores de la Naturaleza mobilized more than 100
firefighting brigades. But their efforts were not enough. The military
refused to loan helicopters to Defensores to fight the flames from the
air, and Defensores' executive director, Oscar Nunez, publicly
complained that "the government is skimping and making very little
effort to fight the fires."
Mendez and his wife Vicky began reforesting their property with native
vegetation more than 30 years ago. They share a natural love for the
forest they help to recreate, and have always provided a sensible
voice for conservation in the mountain community where they live. But
acting as a gatekeeper to uncultivated land in Guatemala is extremely
risky.
In 1993, Mendez nearly lost his life protecting the cloud forest above
his home from illegal timber concessions. He and his son Alex were
attacked by paid gunmen, who were working for timber barons planning
to harvest within the reserve. Wounded and bleeding profusely, the
Mendezes returned to their home and survived with emergency care. But
a year later, Alex died from epileptic seizures brought on by the
trauma of the attack. Carlos lost full use of his right arm, and had
to receive special neurological surgery in New Orleans before he
regained some dexterity in his right hand.
The scandal forced the government to reverse all timber concessions in
the nucleus zone of the reserve. Mendez accepted this as just
compensation and never pressed charges against his attackers. The
Mendezes are now taking visitors into their home as part of an
ecotourism program launched by Defensores. Delicious gingerbread and
sweet, honeyed peaches from their property are among the delights to
enjoy at their table.
But the bitter truth of the illegal fires, hunting and logging is the
staple of conversation. Defensores is trying to meet the challenge of
illegal fires with a Pilot Fire Management Program for the Sierra. The
group's literature notes that, every year, the fires become more
extensive, and serve to "weaken the pine and oak trees located in the
region, skew natural regeneration and contaminate the air."
Defensores' mission is to monitor the fires' effects on biodiversity,
organize local people to form fire brigades and hire people to do fire
prevention in inaccessible areas.
Rainforests are increasingly vulnerable to fire worldwide. As trees
are slashed and burned by peasant farmers desperate for land and
clearcut by voracious timber companies, once-vast rainy ecosystems are
reduced to dry fragments. This trend is leading to a drier climate
worldwide and is also contributing to the greenhouse effect.
In 1998, El Nio sparked drought and forest fires worldwide, with
damage the size of small countries in Brazil and Indonesia. "If the
culture of fire continues, we are killing ourselves little by little,"
says Jose Romero, a Honduran environmentalist. Shade-grown coffee has
become the preferred agricultural alternative to corn, not the least
because it provides excellent songbird habitat, and a small organic
coffee cooperative is underway in the Sierra, launched by Defensores.
But a coffee crop takes three years to become profitable, and by 1998,
organic coffee programs had been underway for only two years in the
Sierra. Patience was limited, the dry season interminable, and some of
the same coffee farmers being trained by the project were guilty of
burning forests in the nucleus zone.
Despite all the problems, there was hope as local residents realized
that coffee farmers live a more comfortable life without clearing and
burning land year in and year out.
Family patriarch Don Carlos Mendez, at 62, still hikes in the
mountains without tiring. The ecosystem of the high Sierra remains
stable, but its future still lies largely in his hands, a heavy burden
for one man. Without him, it is likely that fires and timber
concessions would quickly eliminate the highland forest near his home.
The long-term efforts of Defensores de la Naturaleza to replace the
culture of fire with a new, more sustainable way of life are vital.
But the question remains if the dwindling forests of Guatemala can be
saved in time.
For more information, contact the Fundacion Defensores de la
Naturaleza, Avenida Las Americas 20-21, Zona 14, C.P. 01014,
Guatemala; tel. (011)502-337-3897.