Maya Forest Gardening & Wild Vanilla 🌳🍫🌽

The battle for biodiversity in Belize.

Author

Mitch Hinrichs
May 10, 2024

Read Time: 4 minutes

A battle is brewing for the future of biodiversity in Belize.

But it is one of ideas and relation to nature, not between people.

The Maya have stewarded the land for millennia, resulting in a biodiversity hot spot unlike anywhere else. But their traditional ways of life and farming have been in jeopardy, and now their future is uncertain.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to spend a few weeks with Maya Milperos, who are known as forest gardeners and practice Milpa farming.

I left Belize both immensely inspired and discouraged.

The Maya Milpa Cycle & Indigenous Wisdom

For thousands of years, the Maya have successfully “farmed” the Belize, Guatemala, and the Yucatan of Mexico rainforests.

Milpa is an approach to agriculture with immense foresight and resilience.

Most of us have heard of the “three sisters”, (squash, corn, and beans being grown together), but that is only one small sliver of a larger system.

The Milpa cycle is roughly 20 years in total and broken into four stages.

These stages are split into five-acre plots, so successions of each stage happen simultaneously to fulfill various purposes continually.

Forest to Field ( Year 1-5 )

This Milpa cycle starts with slashing and burning a section of the forest to plant annuals such as corn, squash, beans, and more than 90 other crops.

Field to Orchard ( Year 5-12 )

Fruit trees, like fast-growing perennials such as plantain, banana, and papaya, begin to produce within a year and shade slower-growing perennials.

Orchard to Forest Garden ( Year 12-20 )

As the slower-growing trees (cacao, avocados, mango, and allspice) mature, their productivity becomes more reliable and consistent. However, the canopy begins to block sunlight, preventing annual production from flourishing.

Forest Regeneration ( Year 20+ )

Image from Maya Forest Gardeners

During the last stage of this cycle, the forest garden becomes a maturing forest, similar to the state that was burned two decades before at the start of this cycle. These trees can be used for construction, housing, and medicines.

But with each completion of the Milpa cycle, the forest becomes slightly altered, as specific species are continually chosen and curated to suit the current and future needs of the people and the wildlife.

You can see it in action below.

Narciso Torres & the Maya Elders

The Maya elders have been crucial to Dr. Ford's and her team's research. Together, they have been documenting and mapping their influence on the landscapes in Belize and beyond.

Dr. Ford has been focusing on the ancient Maya city, El Pilar, which she has been documenting and excavating for the past 40 years.

Narcisso Torres & Alfonso Tzul discussing tree species used for construction

While we were there, they learned more about how the Milpa cycle considers traditional construction materials for houses and dwellings.

The Maya people didn’t domesticate animals, so materials needed to be grown near where they would be used, adding even more variables to an already challenging farming environment.

Their wisdom shines so bright as they reflect on all they’ve learned.

They explained that when a child was born, trees would be planted in the Milpa close by, so when they approached their 20s, they would have materials to construct a house as they started a family of their own.

50-Year-Old Food Forest Island

Narciso invited us to visit his Milpa forest garden, which he has been tending to for over 50 years. That day the temperature was well above 100º F, and the walk to his Milpa from his home was excruciating.

Sitting under the shade of Narcisso’s food forest listening to his experiences

But as soon as we stepped foot inside the shade of his forest, life exploded.

The insects were humming, the birds were singing, and the temperature cooled. We tried many fruits and foods I had never heard of or dreamed of.

Narcisso guides the tour around his food forest

Surrounding this island of biodiversity and production was of recent rainforest that had been slashed and burned, then tilled to be planted with dent corn.

The temperature radiating off the soil was disorientingly hot and void of life.

Recently planted corn field adjacent to Narcisso’s food forest

Narcisso claims that since this type of agriculture has proliferated around his Milpa, the rains don’t fall as frequently. I don’t have any claim against or for that statement, but there was at least a 30º F difference between inside his food forest and standing in the middle of the tilled field.

The Mennonite Settlements & Industrial Maize

In the mid-1950s, groups of Mennonites found refuge in Belize after an agreement with the Belizean government, which offered them land, religious freedom, and tax exemptions.

Now, making up less than 5% of the population, they produce most of the domestic dairy and eggs and export much of the corn they produce.

I was astonished by the intensity of the corn production in Belize. Huge swaths of the rainforest have been slashed and burned to grow maize year-round.

And unlike the Milpa cycle, no intentions exist to reforest the areas.

This is not a criticism of the Mennonites.

Everyone I interacted with during my time there was respectable, and they have successfully integrated there. They are a community of people working tremendously hard to provide a great life for themselves and their families.

Some of the communities there still adhere to traditional ways of life and don’t use modern technologies or electricity, but the ones that do embrace it have proceeded full speed ahead.

But the sheer scale of destruction to the biodiversity of the surrounding rainforest to solely produce corn is absolutely atrocious.

And it doesn’t appear to have any plans of slowing down.

Reimagining the Maya Civilization

The most common myth that characterizes the Maya people is that they suffered a population collapse. This myth began in 1524, as Cortez and his men slept regularly under the roofs of Maya homes.

The evidence that the Maya people vanished completely is wrong.

Today, seven million Maya live in Mexico and Central America, which is equal to the population living during the Spanish Conquest.

The Maya didn’t go anywhere! They are still flourishing in Belize and beyond!

Cacao Trees, Vanilla Orchids, & Agroforestry

To end our trip, we were introduced to Ruth Moloney, the founder of the farm Corridgeree, who is introducing and integrating agroforestry into cacao and vanilla production in Belize.

Before starting Corridgeree, she spent her career working with global commodity supply chains, including being a strategic cocoa buyer for Nestle USA, monitoring trading and sustainability for Armajaro, and working on the production side after running two large coconut/citrus operations in Belize.

Ruth shows us how they grow vanilla in the share of an agroforestry system

Their goal is to embrace the richness of the cacao and vanilla genetics present in Belize and showcase better ways to cultivate and produce these high-value crops to farmers around the country.

Both vanilla and cacao grow wild in Belize and are native to the area. These “wild” genetics risk being wiped out due to farmers destroying the native rainforests in search of quick profits.

Growing vanilla on poles under shade cloth for more intense cultivation

So Ruth and her team are searching and cultivating these wild and local genetics to deliver resilience to the crops and profits to local farmers looking for new opportunities to make a living from the land.

And they are making some of the best chocolate I’ve ever had.

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