Indigenous Voices Push for Stewardship in Maya Forest Corridor

Last Friday, Prime Minister John Briceño made history, signing the Calakmul Declaration alongside leaders from Guatemala and Mexico. It’s a significant move toward protecting one of the largest remaining tropical forests in the region: the Great Maya Forest. The declaration officially establishes the Great Maya Forest Biocultural Corridor, a cross-border conservation effort. But tonight, Maya leaders from southern Belize are saying that it’s time to move beyond “business as usual.” In a joint statement, the Maya Leaders Alliance, the Julian Cho Society, and the Toledo Alcalde Association are calling for a shift, one that puts cultural traditions and customary stewardship at the heart of conservation. We spoke with Christina Coc, spokesperson for the Maya Leaders Alliance, who shared why this moment is so important for Indigenous communities and the future of the forest.

 

Christina Coc, Spokespersons, MLA/TAA

“Globally there has been a concerted effort and call by indigenous people organization, conservation organizations and indigenous people advocates for us to move away from fortress conservation where we are keeping people out and pretend that nature is going to be wild. It is important to recognize that indigenous people have long lived and thrive in forest and lands and their stewardship of those lands are consistent with conservation efforts. Their traditional knowledge for instance grounds them in ensuring they maintain ecosystem balance, and relationship to place, water, forest. So what we are saying globally is that we have to move away form this idea that we have to keep people out but integrating their knowledge, relationship to people and forest. So for us it is important that the approach is one that is open to legitimizing our traditional ecological knowledge, our ancestral stewardship of land and ensuring that people are at the center of conservation.”