Ruminations on Environmentalism
and Guatemala
Lea esta ensayo en español
My love of birds is intimately intertwined with a profound respect for nature and a more urgent feeling about the environment. Where the environment begins to degrade, the birds fall first. The Peregrine Falcon is a prime example. The use of DDT (now banned in the United States, but used here in Guatemala) led to eggshell thinning, which ultimately led to the demise of the species. We were lucky that Peregrines were so amenable to human handling, for it was through the captive breeding programs that the Peregrine survives today. An identical program is underway for the Central and South American species, the Orange-breasted Falcon (Falco deiroleucus).
In 2006, I retired to Guatemala, where the birding community is not well organized, and much help is needed. There are approximately 700 species found here, and a lot of research needs to be done. I was naïvely shocked when I discovered that the names of the birds in Spanish are not uniform or accepted by the AOU (American Ornithologists’ Union). But I now accept this reality, as there are so many different dialects in Guatemala alone, not to mention that all the other Spanish-speaking countries of South America have their own lingo and names for birds. Many of the good birders I have met down here use the scientific name for all the birds, which makes complete sense, because it is the one language accepted worldwide. I think it is easier to pronounce the scientific names if your first language is Spanish, rather than English, but maybe that is my excuse. For example, I have a hard time going out in the field with my Spanish-speaking friends, and if we see what I know as a Lesser Roadrunner, they will call out “Geococcyx velox.” On the other hand, I personally want to come up to speed with the scientific names, so this has presented a new challenge to me. There is an excellent ornithology listserv for neotropical birds, where I have learned a great deal about the research and programs that are in place in Central and South America, and if I was not learning the scientific names I would be lost. It is called NEOORN, and you can subscribe if you want to.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in conjunction with the National Audubon Society, perhaps the frontrunners in North American avian research, have launched an international program called eBird, wherein citizen scientists (their term) from all the Americas can report their sightings to one database. This has opened the gateway to a comprehensive look at avian population trends worldwide. Guatemala opened their portal to eBird this year. I was honored to be a part of the process; I report to eBird regularly and encourage others to do so as well.
After living in Guatemala for a year and a half, I have made some observations that I want to share with you. They pertain mostly to Lago Atitlán, but many of the same problems exist throughout Central and South America.
Lago Atitlán . . . Hanging In The Balance
I know when I look out my door at the beautiful willow trees that border Lago Atitlán at the base of my property, I see something entirely different than someone who has lived here all their life. I came here as a foreigner, so it is only natural that I would see things differently. But I also came here with a background in environmental studies and law, and I want to offer my insights to improve the life of Lago Atitlán and the wonderful Mayan people who inhabit the region.
I see an enormous, turquoise and green lake, surrounded by steep mountains and fjords with a scattering of pueblos, some larger than others, connected by Mayan traditions and culture. I see a lake that has not yet been seriously contaminated, a virgin in a world of otherwise adulterated watersheds. I also see the day is coming when Lago Atitlán will be contaminated. The populations are growing, and with them the demand for water. Those who grow food for market use large pumps to suck the water up to their fields. Those who build houses excavate the sands of the best beaches, leaving a mud floor in the lake, where you sink to your knees if you go out for a swim, strong evidence that more sand is coming out than going in. And of course, the rainy season brings an uncertain amount of sand and siltation to the lake. Wood is the primary source of heat for preparing food, and if they want to cut down the willow trees, there is nothing to say they cannot, and much of the riparian corridor has deep gaps in it. Every day, more and more trees are cut.
You could make a case that the Mayans are responsible for this damage, and that they are the ones who have put the lake at risk. But that is not the truth. Coffee is their largest export, and the folks who own the coffee plantations are rich and often arrogant; they have no problem exploiting the workers for worthless pay, and it is hard, hard work. These people work six days a week for dirt pay, and there are no signs of change. I am always thinking about that American idiom “spinning your wheels in the mud,” because that is what is happening here for the poor people. The rich oppress the poor just as they do in so many parts of the world, and the deforestation of Guatemala is an urgent problem brought on primarily by the rich coffee plantation owners and international corporations.
It wasn’t long ago, less than half a century, when the Mayans wrapped all their food in corn husks, composted their waste without knowing what composting was, and apart from bathing and washing their clothes in the lake, they had little negative impact on the water quality. They did not use chemicals to grow their food, and they had never heard of plastic. Water rationing was and is a way of life for them. It was a shallow footprint. But poverty brings with it very complex problems, and the Mayans have historically lived in poverty and oppression, dredging a living from the fertile, volcanic soils of Guatemala with little insight into the environmental consequences of some of their behaviors, such as cutting the trees and excavating the beaches. The immediate needs of malnourished, and in too many cases, starving children, supersede all other realities. On top of this there is ingrained racism on the part of the wealthier Ladinos who live in the bigger cities and enjoy disdaining the Mayans and their way of life. The thought of them being compassionate or trying to help educate and enhance the lives of the Mayans is nonexistent for the most part. Help is not going to come from inside Guatemala.
Add to this the influence of the first-world countries, the United States being among the worst, who come and offer farmers pesticides, such as DDT, which can no longer be sold in the US because it has proven to be harmful to animals and people alike. Other corporations such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, the oil giants and many others move their production down here, because they can exploit the natural resources, hire labor at shameful wages, operate their trucks and equipment with no emissions controls, and accelerate the degradation of the environment with nothing in place to stop them.
Then there’s tourism, which many believe is a boon to the economy, but is it? Hotels and restaurants go up at Lago Atitlán, uniformly owned by foreigners, and the hired labor, the Mayans, get about $1 an hour for very hard work cleaning and cooking, often in insufferable heat and with unspeakably long hours. In the Spanish schools, another source of tourism, the teachers make about $15 a week. To complicate matters further, the tourism arm of the Guatemalan government, INGUAT, sees fit to wine and dine the wealthy American and European eco-tour or avi-tour operators at great expense to Guatemala, and whisk them off to all the best spots they can find that are free of trash (and hopefully Mayans) and full of birds or ruins or other extraordinary natural beauty.
I am not trying to place blame, but rather to paint an accurate picture of what is actually happening in Guatemala and to Lake Atitlán, so that perhaps some good ideas can be formed and executed without denigrating anyone, and hopefully enhancing the quality of the lake. It is designated a “reserve” under Guatemalan law, but it is severely underfunded and mostly ignored. As an example, duck hunting is one of the things strictly prohibited because of the “reserve” status, yet ducks are hunted extensively and hundreds of migratory waterfowl are killed on their wintering ground. I do have a few suggestions, and I will list them in order of priority/urgency:
- There needs to be investment in building municipal waste treatment plants in every single pueblo, but first and foremost the bigger towns such as Panajachel, Santiago and San Pedro La Laguna, so that raw sewage is not going into the lake. Many individuals do have septic systems but there are no municipal wastewater treatment plants.
- Environmentalism needs to be taught in the schools so that every single child has heard the words “Medio ambiente” and has a picture in their mind of what it means. The seeds must be planted that nature is beautiful and should be respected and admired, and that here, at Lago Atitlán, they have been given a gift of beauty and heritage that many in Guatemala do not have, and it should be preserved and protected.
- Information on the toxicity of pesticides and plastic and their correlation to cancer (of which there is a great deal here) needs to be disseminated. Workers need to be hired and paid decently to begin picking up the trash, and then the trash itself needs to be carefully sorted and dealt with appropriately. This is already happening on a small scale in some villages. However, the amount of trash is huge, and cleaning it up is going to be a big process, because it is scattered through the woods, lined along the streets, all over and around the edge of the lake, stuck behind rocks and in almost every crevasse. It poses a particular danger here because Lago Atitlán is at the bottom of the surrounding hills where everyone lives and all the trash, even at the very top of the remotest hills, migrates to the lake eventually with every wind and every rainfall. Lago Atitlán is the waste basket for the entire region. Further, many local people burn their trash and the smell of burning plastic is common and the airborn toxins are extremely dangerous. You may wonder, why do they toss their trash? There are at least two logical explanations. In the past, it was corn husks which they tossed and these did not harm the environment. Then suddenly there was plastic and styrofoam and they just went on doing what they always did, they tossed it. The other reason is that having your trash picked up (and there are some local municipalities that have big trash trucks and offer this service) costs money, and if you are making a choice between milk for your baby or having your trash picked up, well, the answer is obvious.
- Jetskis should be banned altogether. The first jetski I saw was during Semana Santa 2008, and belonged to some folks who lived close by. We went over to talk to them. They were from Guatemala City and said, “Oh, there are all kinds of filters on it.” It was ironic to me. Both parents spoke English, were obviously well-educated, owned a piece of property on the lake, had even seen Lake Tahoe, and had no problem bringing their prized jetski up and spewing pollution into the lake. I probably live 200 yards from them and I could smell the fumes from my front porch, not to mention noise pollution, a concept completely alien to this culture.
- Boat traffic should be limited to public transportation and getting people where they need to go and nothing else.
Lago Atitlán is one of the most beautiful places in the world and there is still time to save it from becoming contaminated. It is already designated as a “reserve,” but most do not know what that means, and few really understand that if the lake does become contaminated, it will be the end of life in and around the lake. It is without any question the source of all life here.
Last and not least, hunger and poverty have led to extensive killing of the wildlife around the lake. The boats used for public transportation are also used to kill hundreds of migratory Lesser Scaup (Aythya assinis) and American Coot (Fulica americana). White-winged Doves (Zenaida asiatica) are also taken. And believe it or not, herons (Ardea herodias) and egrets (Ardea alba) are taken for food as well. There are very few raptors, so they may have met the same fate.
It is my firm belief that intervention from other countries who are willing to invest in enhancing the lives of the indigenous people through education, field trips, and exposure and explanation of the beauties of nature, while providing incentives for preserving the lake and explaining why this is so important, is essential. It is not enough to just make laws and not enforce them. It is worse to blame the indigenous populations for the problems, because the problems are way past the blame stage, and the most urgent problems are not of their doing. If it became a national or international effort to preserve Lago Atitlán, everyone involved would gain a great deal of pride and self-esteem, and the Mayan people especially would benefit from this, because it is their territory and they must be an intrinsic part of the process. Many small projects are in place around the lake, but the general lack of infrastructure and networking has impeded the potential to organize a serious effort to save this beautiful part of the Earth.
Carol C. Anderson
Villa Cuba
San Pedro La Laguna
Sololá, GT
You can contact me here.
