Land, Value and Economic Development in Toledo
(A Maya Perspective)
By Gregory Ch'oc, Punta Gorda, Toledo
"May the spirit of Mother Earth watch over her children."
Today most of us live in a capitalist world where land is regarded as a
commodity,-something that has an exchange value and can be traded. This
attitude has alienated land from man: man has relinquished his proper role
of stewardship and protector of land resources. This is one reason why the
plea to save the rainforests, the home of the Aboriginal people of Central
America often seems to be something belonging to another time. In the
present age of "progress," the concern about Aboriginal ties to the land
often seem to be anachronistic.
The propriety attitude of land ownership usually destroys land stewardship,
since the owners of land often buy and sell land as an economic commodity,
with little concern for such matters of environmental degradation,
pollution, erosion and so on. This unfortunate "Euro-American" attitude to
land use is gaining ground in Belize; and, in many cases, is being
supplemented by the present Asiatic attitude to land use, which is to grab
what you can from the environment and take off. In the specific case of
Belize, something even more sinister may be in progress.
The Asiatic money that is, with Belize Government consent, backing the
attack on our Toledo Forests will have a serious effect on the Mayas.
Their attitude about land is different and has evolved over a time scale of
many centuries. Maize (corn) has long been the basic food crop and is almost
considered as a "gift from God" since their earliest days. It is still
considered a sacred crop. Land that can grow corn is still important for
the Mayas and they have evolved an agronomic system using forest fallowing
to ensure that the soils remain reasonably fertile. Their system provides
the nearest thing to sustainable production of essential food crops in most
of Central America. Despite years of agricultural use, the land is still
largely clothed in forest. To turn loose Asiatic entrepreneurs to destroy
the Mayan agricultural system (and the cultural value that go with it) is
something about which all Belizeans should be ashamed.
It has not escaped the notice of the Mayas that most of the local Asiatic
stooges are from our own East Indian (Asiatic in origin) ethnic population,
who have never had much to do with environmental conservation. They are
"front" men used to help legalize the activity of the Taiwanese
entrepreneurs. In effect, there is a battle in progress in Toledo between
an Indigenous (to Central America) ethnic group who care about how they
treat the land and have no wish to sell or buy land, and foreign ethnic
invaders who think of land only as a means of making profit by acquisition
and subsequent sale - something Mayas simply cannot understand or approve
of. For the Mayas the "value" of land and its resources is life itself -
something priceless. For centuries the Mayas derived their food, clothing
and shelter from the land. The system of government, religion and beliefs
sprang from the intimate relationship with the land. The cultural identity
is still tied to the land - therefore a land base is vital for the continuity
of the Mayas. We have seen what happened to native people and their land
since 1492.
What needs to be understood is the centuries of betrayals. When
woodcutters were extracting hardwood from the forest of British Honduras,
they wanted only the wood. It was not the wood, but its effect that
enabled other parties to exploit the Mayas and the resources of their land.
We are not against 'progress' or development per se, but there is the need
to find a fair solution to the cultural orientations underlying the land
conflict in Toledo.
The ideological, spiritual and economic relation of the Mayas to the land
has meant that land and its resources are perhaps the most decisive element
to ensure successful economic development. It is critical if the Mayas are
to successfully pursue traditional forms of economic life, since development
programs supported by government continued to cause social and cultural
stress to the Mayas.
For development to benefit the Mayas it is critical for them to actively
participate in all levels in any and all development so that they benefit
from any development. This specifically important to development which
affects the land and the livelihood earned from it, so that the Mayas
participate in the economic benefits which flow from such projects.
Sad to say that the logging madness rampant in Toledo by unscrupulous
business interests aided and abetted by the government is not benefitting
the Mayas or the economy of Belize. If the Ministry of Natural Resources
believes that based on the economic needs of Toledo they decided to make
the concession more favorable to Atlantic Industries Ltd. then they must be
'nuts', because only the Asiatic conglomerate will reap the millions from
Toledo's resources.
All the Asiatic loggers are doing is creating an irreversible ecological
nightmare for the Mayas. At the same time disorienting Mayas' environmental
concepts which centers on the preservation of the Maya Culture. The Mayas
are fighting back by strongly opposing the logging concessions. For now
this is the only means by which the Mayas are defending their habitat
against the drastic changes associated with commercial logging to ensure
free access to the natural resources in Toledo upon which the Maya Culture
depends. Through their various organizations they are demanding to have
more political input into decisions made about developments in Toledo.
Their organizations are working hard and in many ways to foster the
survival of the Maya Culture.
The Mayas are endangered by the exploitation of the resources of their land.
Can the Mayan People survive this attack or will they become part of the
statistics as another victim of ethnocide in the world today? The
government, by consistently justifying its position is indicating that the
Mayan People are too poor to contribute anything worthwhile to the Belizean
economy and are a worthless ethnic burden. Li Kawa chi iloc re xbehen li
ka tyuam.
May 28, 1996
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