The

Toledo Ecotourism Association

Belize: Sustaining a Culture

By Peter Schweitzer and Albert Bates

"Some outsiders are saying that our culture is dying out, but I don't think so...." So says Basilio Ah, a 60 year old Mayan Alcalde (village mayor) and healer in the Toledo district of Southern Belize. He should know. The Toledo district is the home of one of the best examples to date of a native driven economic development project. The Toledo Ecotourism Association (TEA) is an indigenous Community-Based Organization (CBO) founded in 1990 which now includes the Mayan and Garifuna residents of 14 villages. On March 9th of this year they were awarded the ToDo Prize for the Best Example of Socially Responsible Tourism in the World at the world's largest Tourism trade fair, the ITB in Berlin, Germany.

As we stepped off the small plane in Punta Gorda Town that for $75 US ($150 Belizian) had leapfrogged us an hour down the coast from Belize City (avoiding a day-long bumpy bus ride), we were met by Gomier in his red pickup truck. Luggage loaded in the back, we were taxied the short few blocks from the airport to the bay, where we pulled up to Nature's Way Guest House.

Belize is unique in Central America for several reasons. First, it's "underpopulated," less than the population of Nashville (200,000) in an area the size of Tennessee. It's a melting pot of strong and distinctive cultures, from the indigenous Mopan and Kek'chi Maya to the Creole, Garifuna (people of Carib and African descent), and immigrant Asian, Latin American and European peoples. Belize is an homogenous mix of Caribbean and Central American. The numerous cultures co-exist peacefully, using a British parliamentary form of elected government. The government is not at war with its people or with any of its neighbors. There is no guerrilla movement. The government, while poor, is relatively enlightened about the environment. Hundreds of thousands of acres of Belize have been designated as protected lands, and a series of wildlife sanctuaries are about to be created.

In fact we shared Nature's Way with distinguished zoologist and Howler monkey expert Dr. Robert Horwich, who had trekked down to Punta Gorda Town to meet with authorities about the sanctuary plan. A sort-of Jane Goodall for Howler Monkeys, Horwich has been working to preserve large sections of rainforest where few men have ever trod. Over fresh tamales and pastries brought to the patio by local Mayan vendors, the shaggy white-haired scientist unfolded a large map of the region and told us of his work.

Belize is home to some of the most pristine ecology remaining on the planet and, in the lightly populated (15,000), southernmost district can be found rainforest, wetlands, coastal reefs, deserted cayes, and the Maya Mountains. Toledo was once dubbed the "forgotten district" of Belize. No more. Foreign logging interests are now in Toledo cutting the rainforest. The wood will be sold abroad. The government wants promises of sustainable logging, but they look the way at abuses because of the much needed foreign revenues. The Mayans are protesting the logging, as are many of the Belizean environmental groups Horwich is advising.

Meanwhile, a consortium of foreign nations is loaning Belize the millions of dollars needed to build a wide, paved road from Cancun to Guatemala City, straight through southern Belize. With the road will come commercial tourism, by the bus and car load, as well as the agriculture interests, mostly citrus farming, which augurs additional clear-cutting and the introduction of pesticides to an area where many of the butterflies of the Western Hemisphere overwinter and breed.

The Toledo Ecotourism Association

The Indigenous Peoples of Toledo are looking at all this like a family in a Volkswagen stalled on the railroad tracks might look at a freight train bearing down on them. Some of them are scrambling to get off the tracks and re-route the train. These are the founders and members of the TEA. What they are trying to create is a model of integrated development. Not only does it promote health, culture, food and organic agriculture, permaculture, reforestation and economic initiatives, TEA also seeks to include all the people in the village, and all the villages in the region. TEA is a program that is cooperatively run by three different cultures, speaking three different languages.

There are 35 Mayan villages in Toledo. The program was begun by four villages in 1990. Fourteen have now established TEA chapters. Seven more have asked to join.

In the morning, Gomier, a Creole Rasta from St. Lucia, took us up into the rainforest to the ancient Mayan ruin of Lubaantun. Near there, we stopped in the thatched roof village of San Pedro Colombia.

The way it has been working is, a TEA member village starts by building a traditionally structured guesthouse (thatch roof, slat board walls, but with a cement floor) able to accommodate eight tourists at a time. The guesthouse is rustic and sparse, but comfortable. The beds have mattresses and pillows and clean linen. There are clean privies and bucket showers and drinking water that has been boiled.

At meal time, children come and collect the guests and take them, two by two, to the homes of families who have been trained to entertain foreign visitors and keep a high level of sanitation. They are naturally friendly and gregarious and love to talk to visitors about their lives and what is important to them. Later there were guided walks along rainforest trails, canoeing along rivers running through the rainforest, exploring caves and visiting ancient Mayan archaeological sites. Evening entertainment included the telling of Mayan stories and myths, traditional and current village music and dance performances. The villagers all turned out to show us a good time.

The third day we traveled by dugout to a backwater of the Caribbean Sea where descendants of survivors of capsized slave ships still live. The Garifuna people are descended from escaped slaves and slaves lost in storms off Dominica and St. Vincent, who wandered ashore on the Yucatan and were taken in by the Caribs and in due course intermarried. Here in Barranco we met a healer named Alfred, who harvests Bitter Melon for the seeds which he sends to pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland. Until recently orders come [came] to a central radio phone in the village, powered by solar cells. Today there is a phone line in, carrying the internet to the thatched roof home of Carlson Tuttle, who teaches Barranco schoolchildren to surf in cyberspace. Once again we stayed in the TEA guesthouse and dined with local hosts, like the elderly Justice of the Peace, who represents the government and the law in Barranco from her humble kitchen, as monkeys shout through the windows. Her honor fed us fresh casava bread, made over an open fire by the local baker.

More than 1,500 tourists have experienced the TEA program since it began. Another visitor we met said, "I found the two days I spent in a Maya village the most memorable I've had in my seven years of travel in Central America. The experience is one that I will hold significant for the rest of my life." We have to echo that sentiment. This was not a motel stay. This was up close and personal in the lives of the rainforest peoples, who wanted to reach out, open their lives, and ask the larger world to try to understand them.

Meal providers, guides, musicians, story-tellers and guesthouse staff are rotated to spread the proceeds of the visits through the entire village. Eighty-five percent of the charges (typically about $25-30 for a night with all the tours and meals) remain in the village and a portion is set aside to accumulate in the village "health and education fund." Fifteen percent goes to the TEA office to build and administer the program.

Is Ecotourism an Oxymoron?

We asked Mark Cohen, who runs the Belize Agroforestry Project, a research institute deep in the rainforest that studies traditional subsistence lifestyles and identifies companion flora and fauna, the question that had always come up whenever "eco" and "tourism" appear in the same word: "How does bringing more western commerce into this pristine environment help preserve it, in the long run?" Mark, who has no personal stake in ecotourism, was nonetheless supportive, citing numerous benefits-educating both visitors and the local people themselves about the value of their rainforest habitat and the inter-relatedness of the ecology and the people who live in it; strengthening the indigenous culture by promoting it and relearning it; providing dignified employment in the village for men and women of all ages; keeping the flow of tourism at manageable levels and in the control of the local people; strengthening the local economy and committing the people to the preservation of the rainforest and offering sustainable alternatives to slash and burn agriculture, careless logging, citrus farming and other destructive enterprises. In the best of worlds, the rainforest people could just go on living their ancient ways in harmony with the forest. Given the road, the loggers, and the other pressures now being felt, this was the next best course for the people and for the monkeys.

Because the TEA is playing a critical role in the fight of the Indigenous Peoples of Central America to protect their cultures and environment, it is important that they have the tools to match the well-equipped forces aligned against them. The TEA has received some funds from the government of Belize, the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations Development Program's Small Grants Fund and Onaway Trust to help them get this far. The program has been written up in National Geographic Traveler magazine and the Sierra Club Guide to Belize. They are in a position to begin integrating tourists on a regular basis but continue to require financial assistance in order to staff their office in Punta Gorda, and to better market the TEA.

Come on Down!

Flights from Miami or Los Angeles can run as little as $500 round trip to Belize City, another $150 for the round trip flight to Punta Gorda Town, less if you go by bus. The costs in country are perhaps half that for a week-long vacation to remember for a lifetime.

If we've inspired you to learn more about the people of Belize or the TEA be sure to cruise the following sites. And let us know if you actually do make the trip.

www.plenty.org
www.belize.com
www.syscompbelize.com
www.iadb.org

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