Asociación Rupalaj Kistalin (Face of the crystal volcano San Juan de la Laguna.)
NATIVE SHADE
By Larissa Litchfield
Article published in EntreMundos
In Mayan cosmovision humans and nature are part of the same whole. Our first grandparents, Juan Ajpu and Ix Bálam kyej became the sun and the moon respectively. We are interdependent, what we do affects nature and what nature does affects us. There exists an essential harmony between us.
San Juan La Laguna, Lago Atitlan. 4am. Still dark and cool outside. The coffee plants lining the village are gently swaying in the still moonlit breeze. The roosters awaken the new day with their familiar morning cries. Within a few adobe homes 10 men are stirring to the smells of boiling coffee over a wood fire. By 5am they are all ready to work at their local native tree nursery called Amigables con los Pajaros, (Friends with the birds). This nursery is organized by Asociacion Rupalaj Kistalin, a grassroots community group that seeks to promote and manage eco-tourism and conservation of biodiversity in the area.
Between 5am and 8am every weekday Ruben Enrique Sumoza Mendoza and his 14 companions from Association Rupalaj Kistalin, dedicate themselves, through shifts, to caring for and increasing their communal organic tree nursery. They are an integral part of a small cooperative who have seen the destruction of the lakeside mountains and volcanoes. They have lived amongst the tree loggers who sell native trees by the truckload every week, which fuels the continued need for firewood amongst local villages. They have witnessed with regret the parched water springs and the village suffer water shortage as a consequence.
In Guatemala currently 129 municipalities have soils suffering high rates of environmental degradation. Each year 55,000 hectares of forest are lost. Ten percent of the country is threatened by drought. Twenty percent of the country’s fauna is in danger of extinction. An unknown percentage of these concerning statistics is due to militaristic activities in the forests of the altiplano during the 36 year long civil war (1960 – 1996). They knew the guerillas were hiding amongst the trees. At various intervals, the military literally set whole forests ablaze with fire, or simply cut hundreds of pines down, to make the guerillas an easier target. Campesinos living around those areas refused to use those fallen logs for firewood or construction. They are still rotting.
Two years ago, Ruben began working with the governmental organization for conservation, CONAP (Consejo Nacional de Area Protegidas) as representative for the San Juan municipality. He began to repair the damage of illegal logging, inefficient conservation, dying fauna and unvalued local resources. But working for the government was not enough. Never enough funding, enough personnel, nor sufficient interest from the capital. By working in this bureaucratic environment, he realized that grassroots organizations are more efficient. Instead he remembered what his grandfather had taught him as a child about Mayan values…
“Mis nietos. We are the guardians of the earth, it is our gift to care for it. We are children of the sky and of the earth. They deserve our respect. Our ancestors believed the earth itself was the back of a giant reptile. Reptiles are sacred to Mayans. So the earth itself is divine. We cannot forget the tradition of the ancient Mayan rituals of planting and of cutting and of harvesting. My children, when you cut a tree down, you need permission from Ahaw, the Great Father. And remember to only cut down trees on a full moon.”
Ruben had this vision of forming a community organization, dedicated to preserving both the environment and Mayan culture. And yet his neighbors were disinterestedly cutting trees of all types without a care for mother earth cracked, for the decreasing rains, for the diminishing village water. Now, with the influence of Association Rupalaj Kistalin, San Juan village has strong community principles regarding deforestation. As if relearning to speak Tzutujil, the language of their forebears, they have relearnt to respect the environment.
Unfortunately, smaller villages nestled higher in the mountains, are still locked into a basic economy based on selling firewood in the larger towns around Solola. The wood is cut before dawn each day (without permits and increasingly on private land), carried down in heavy loads on the back of a campesino from high in the hills, then loaded into pickups who have legal permission from the government forestry organization, INAB (Instituto Nacional de Bosques) for the use of a warehouse to store wood. There is no official verification procedure as to what kind, how much or from where this wood is obtained. In 1998 INAB began PINFOR, a national incentive program for farmers and tree loggers to earn up to Q 5000 over 5 years, for planting mostly conifers and managing local forests. This does not include technical advice on setting up tree nurseries or managing forests, which makes this program difficult to sustain. In addition to these inefficiencies, the INAB director for Xela region told me, only 4 years after initiating the program, that the budget is dry and they can no longer offer incentives. Moreover, sanctions for incompliance with the laws are unreasonable, for example, people will go to jail if they allow a forest fire to start in the parcel of land under their management. Many people find this a harsh law, as forest fires may happen on very very hot summer days after a long dry season, or a silent hunter forgets to properly stub his cigarette out. How can farmers be expected to spend 24 hours watching their trees when they have a family to feed? There is a clear disconnect between the makers of the laws and those who must comply with them. Once again, Ruben knew the only reliable way forward was to start a community reforestation cooperative.
“Man is suffering. Why? because he doesn’t have respect for nature anymore. Because he has lost contact with his creators and his protectors. He doesn’t listen to the wind. Bad things are happening to our environment.”
Ruben´s group has retrieved seeds for many of the precious native species still holding out in the local area: cedro, encino (oak), wachipilim, chicharra, palo de pito, sapotillo, limoncillo, duraznillo, barba de viejo, palo de cacho, injerto, matasano, matapalo, jocote…. and the list continues…. But around San Juan, since the export coffee boom of the 1970s, coffee grows in abundance. Adding to the waste of land and resources, since 2000 when cheap Vietnamese coffee entered the US market, that boom has begun to wilt for Guatemala. And the plants remain accruing little gain or interest and at the expense of a more balanced local fauna.
“Coffee plants thrive and the coffee is almost worthless now. We grew them to make our lives easier with more income. But now we have less milpa, our soil is undernourished, and our trees have gone and our coffee is worthless.”
Another problem is migratory agriculture. As large farmers buy up more land, small subsistence farmers are forced to move their plots into remote and inhospitable areas. Small subsistence parcels of land shrinking as wealthier landowners buy up more land for commercial use, edging their way further into the still cultivable land owned by subsistence farmers. These farmers get pushed further upslope, where they must cut down more trees to plant their milpa (corn and bean fields). This land may be productive for five years at most before drying the soil of its nutrients and ability to produce a harvest. It then requires a six year resting period, with no cultivation, to regain its nutrients. The cycle repeats itself as the campesino is forced to move up the mountainside and cut more trees down out of necessity.
“We have lost the birds that used to sing when we worked in the fields, we have lost the monkeys and the coyotes and the squirrels. And the trees native to our land are disappearing. Where do you see the encino or the matasano or the wachipilim now?”
A boat ride across Lago Atitlan is living proof of the heights these farmers will go to in order to feed their families with maiz for a period of time. Many of the fertile volcano slopes leading down to the lake are shaved and bleeding with need for trees to prevent erosion, retain humidity for the various water springs that feed the thirst of the lakeside villages and provide areas of biodiversity for birds and fauna that are becoming extinct without them.
“We want our shade to be 100% native”
The year 2005 will be a decisive year for Association Rupalaj Kistalin. Currently there are over 20,000 native tree seedlings in their nursery. They plan to reforest much of the government “communal” land and to sell to private landowners in vast quantities from March to June. It is an initiative by the people for the people. It is from the heart.
“Think now, my children. Save the native species and watch Tzuul Taq´a, spirit of the hills, thank you with a return to healthier soils, more animals fresh fountains of water for our village. Just as we thank the Creator before we eat… so too remember to thank Ahaw for all the natural wonders that abound around you and care for them. Or they will vanish.”
Having spent many mornings watching and speaking with the group, I am moved by how much can be done to help the environment, by so few. These are hardworking and committed people. They welcome volunteers who share the vision of repairing the planet at a community level, and who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of Mayan culture by sharing their homes and participating in San Juan community as a friend.
“This is my wish as your grandfather who has seen the sufferings of the earth ever since we began exploiting her. Ever since she was hacked up into personal possession and became a tool for economic gain. Against the wishes of our great ancestors. Instead of thriving as a proud Mayan community we became individual competitors who have forgotten how to share. Grandmother moon watches from above and guides you. Listen to her. Retrieve our values. Save them. They will save you.”
Last year Association Rupalaj Kistalin became officially recognized as an Association. They worked hard to fill all the requirements and still owe Q 1000 for lawyers fees. But they have not let fear of failure be an obstacle to real community action. While pushing forward with his vision of the association, Ruben is an example of a Mayan living with respect for his culture yet participating in the modern world. He knows that tourism is a fount of economic growth for the community but recognizes also that his language, culture and values are what will prevent the community from fragmenting and from becoming one more cheap tourist center of Mayan folklore. He listens to his grandfather and to the voices of the past, yet he is acting in the present and sowing a better future for the children of San Juan. Dedicating himself to his immediate community helps retain their community spirit. Replanting native trees and caring for their local environment is a big leap towards taking responsibility and being actively engaged in repairing current global problems.
Ruben is happy to show visitors around the nursery, to talk about organic methods of fertilizing and organic insecticides, and is eager to learn new techniques.
Other projects the group is involved with include – interpretive eco-touristic paths through the forests near San Juan, hiking tours for visitors in the area, simple lodgings for Spanish students or volunteers with families in the village.
