"We have always lived here; we have the right to go on living where we are happy and where we want to die. Only here can we feel whole; nowhere else would we ever feel complete, and our pain would be eternal."

— --Popul Vuh (Pre-Columbian Maya text)

Logging on Maya Lands / Belize - Victory

The authors of the ancient Maya text, the Popul Vuh, accurately express the attachment of present-day Maya to the forests of southern Belize, where they have lived for 4,000 years. Now, more than ever, the Maya fear losing their forest homelands, as the Belize government sells off their ancestral forests to multinational logging companies. The Maya people, through their elected village leaders, are asking Global Response members to write to the Prime Minister of Belize, (1) asking for immediate suspension of 17 logging concessions in Maya lands, and (2) urging the government to formally recognize Maya land rights and boundaries.

Since 1993, the government of Belize has granted 16 long-term logging concessions totaling nearly 500,000 acres in Maya territory. A single logging concession of 159,018 acres was granted to Atlantic Industries, a Malaysian timber giant, for the reported sum of 60 cents per acre. The concession is in the Columbia River Forest Reserve; it includes 10 Maya villages and endangers roughly half of the Maya population of Belize. Already, Malaysian Atlantic Industries has built one of Central America's biggest sawmills on Maya land - over the protests of the Maya and without the Environmental Impact Assessment required under Belize law.

Although a 1994 forest management plan commits Belize to a policy of small-scale and selective logging, the construction of the huge sawmill and shoddy enforcement of the law suggest that larger logging operations and other threats are imminent. Prohibited trees are being cut, roads have been bulldozed through off-limit areas, and logging during the rainy season has caused unnecessary damage to the forest ecosystem.

For the Maya, the biggest threat is Belize's plan to pave the 167-km Southern Highway through their territory to Punta Gorda on the coast. Financial backers have clear interests in developing the logging and oil industries; fortunately the main funder of the paving project, the Inter-American Development Bank, has agreed to postpone funding for one year, while an Environmental and Social Technical Assistance Project addresses the concerns of environmentalists and the Maya people.

The Maya insist that their rights to land and to full participation in decision-making about development alternatives must be officially secured before the paving project begins. The Maya are Belize's poorest citizens. "Imagine," says Julian Cho, Chair of the Toledo Maya Cultural Council (TMCC), "what could happen with the arrival of rich investors looking for land to buy or sell. If they are allowed free hand in the Maya communities, the principle of stewardship over our natural resources would inevitably be overrun by the `mine-and-run' philosophy of land speculators." In addition to logging and oil companies, banana and citrus multinationals are poised to expand onto Maya agricultural lands with the completion of the road.

To document their claims to the land, the Maya worked with the Montana-based Indian Law Resource Center and a University of California geographer to create a land-use map, showing where they hunt, fish, plant food crops, and manage such important resources as mangroves and wetlands. The Belize government has granted the vast majority of these lands to logging concessions.

"Our Maya culture is tied in with the land; without our land our culture will be lost," says Julian Cho. The TMCC has received a capacity-building grant from the government of Luxembourg to help them plan and carry forward their own vision of sustainable development, including community-based eco-tourism and cultural tourism to ancient Maya sites.

The Columbia River Forest Reserve in the southernmost part of Belize, has been home to the Maya for 4,000 years. This is where rivers are born, where the Maya hunt and fish and gather traditional medicines. Even by rainforest standards, the area is uncommonly bountiful, supporting many rare bird and plant species, including much of the country's old-growth mahogany, and healthy populations of jaguars, tapirs and howler monkeys. A biological assessment conducted by Conservation International in 1992 concluded: "..the evergreen forests of this area...are of great national and international importance as a reservoir of biological diversity. The most species-rich plant and animal communities occur in the Columbia River Forest Reserve." Last September the Belize government opened 200,000 acres of the reserve to mahogany logging. Studies estimate that for each mahogany tree that is cut down, another 3,000 square feet of forest is leveled for logging roads and machinery.

Maya Democratic Organizations: --The Maya are governed and represented by the Toledo Alcaldes Asociation (TAA) and the Toledo Maya Cultural Council (TMCC). The Alcaldes (mayors) are democratically elected leaders from each of the 34 Maya villages in Toledo District; they meet 4 times a year to develop agendas and solve problems. Current chairman is Santiago Coh. The TMCC, which represents about 10,000 Mopan and Kekchi Maya, has worked since 1976 to protect and safeguard the rights of the Maya to their land, culture, customs and education. Julian Cho is chair of the Council, whose membership includes Maya from Toledo and Stann Creek Districts.

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