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The Evolutionary Potential of Lacandon Maya Sustained-Yield Tropical Forest Agriculture
Abstract
As centuries-long residents of the southern Maya lowlands, the Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Mexico have developed and preserved ecologically sound strategies for sustained-yield food production in the tropical forest biome. Their traditional system of agriculture and food extraction emphasizes successful exploitation of the rain forest environment in a manner compatible with forest regeneration and preservation. The authors describe the Lacandon systems of agricultural production, wildlife management, and forest maintenance, then explore the potential these strategies hold for investigation of ancient Maya food production systems and the development of modern resource utilization schemes in the humid tropics.
... Agroecologists, economic botanists, and evolutionary psychologists who work with traditional Maya agriculturalists and the plants of the Maya forest identify the milpa subsistence system as highly integrated with the environment (Nations and Nigh, 1980;Gliessman, 1982Gliessman, , 1992Gliessman, , 1998Gómez-Pompa and Bainbridge, 1993;Terán and Rasmussen, 1994;Quintana-Ascencio et al., 1996;Atran, 1999Atran, , 2000De Clerck and Negreros-Castillo, 2000;Anderson, 2003;Gómez-Pompa et al., 2003;Levy Tacher and Rivera, 2005;Campbell et al., 2006;Nigh, 2006Nigh, , 2008Campbell, 2007;Corzo Márquez and Schwartz, 2008;Ford, 2008;Ross, 2011; among many others). The milpa-forest garden cycle today has continuity with the past. ...
... Understanding the flexibility of the milpa-forest garden cycle and its importance to living in the forest is fundamental. Agricultural practices developed over millennia, working with natural processes to meet immediate food needs with annual crops and selecting significant perennials for long term requirements (Palerm, 1967(Palerm, , 1976Wilken, 1971Wilken, , 1987Nations and Nigh, 1980;Gómez-Pompa, 1987;Hernández Xolocotzi et al., 1995;Terán and Rasmussen, 1995;Gliessman, 2001;Schwartz and Márquez, 2015;cf. Conklin, 1957). ...
... The cycle had to meet the immediate food needs with annual crops while providing significant perennials for long term requirements. The Maya milpa cycle is essentially intensive system based on skills that monitor and address biodiversity, temperature, water, erosion, and soil fertility (Palerm, 1967(Palerm, , 1976Wilken, 1971Wilken, , 1987Nations and Nigh, 1980;Gómez-Pompa, 1987;Hernández Xolocotzi et al., 1995;Terán and Rasmussen, 1995;Gliessman, 2001;Schwartz and Márquez, 2015;cf. Conklin, 1957). ...
Human expansion into and occupation of the New World coincided with the great transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch, yet questions remain about how we detect human presence in the paleoecological record. In the Maya area of southern Mesoamerica, archeological evidence of the human imprint is largely invisible until ∼4,000 years ago. How do environmental changes after that time correspond and relate to human impacts? Are the archeological signatures of initial settlements in the Early Preclassic detected? Later, by ∼2,000 years ago when the Maya had fully settled the landscape, how does the evidence of forest compositional changes relate to human intervention? This paper evaluates published paleoecological data in light of the rise of the Maya civilization and reflects on interpretations of how swidden agriculture and the milpa cycle impacted the environment. Evaluating the contrast between the long archeological sequence of successful Maya development and paleoecological interpretations of destructive human-induced environmental impacts requires a concordance among pollen data, archeological evidence, ethnohistoric observations, ethnological studies of traditional Maya land use, and the historical ecology of the Maya forest today.
... Lacandon farmers fell and burn small patches (typically 1-2 ha) of secondary forest. They then cultivate a diverse milpa polyculture dominated by corn in these swiddens (Diemont & Martin, 2009;Diemont et al., 2006;Falkowski, Chankin, Diemont, & Pedian, 2019;Martin, Roy, Diemont, & Ferguson, 2010;Nations & Nigh, 1980). In addition to annual herbaceous crops, Lacandon farmers also actively cultivate trees in milpas. ...
... In addition to annual herbaceous crops, Lacandon farmers also actively cultivate trees in milpas. These trees serve multiple functions, such as enhancing soil fertility (e.g., Ochroma pyramidale) and providing food (e.g., Persea americana), wood (e.g., Cedrela odorata), or medicine (e.g., Ficus maxima) (Falkowski, Diemont, Chankin, & Douterlungne, 2016;Kashanipour & McGee, 2004;Nations & Nigh, 1980). Birds heavily utilize some species cultivated in milpas for food. ...
... While the early fallow stage is an open ecosystem dominated by ruderal herbaceous vegetation, the advanced fallow stage generally has a shaded understory and closed canopy consisting of pioneer tree species . Lacandon land managers manage the plots and extract resources from these fallows (Nations & Nigh, 1980). After the advanced fallow stage, the plot continues to the early secondary forest stages pak che kor (early secondary forest) and mehen che (middle secondary forest), which collectively last about 20-25 years and become increasingly dominated by shade-tolerant, later-successional trees. ...
A bstract
Evidence regarding the ability of agroforests to conserve biological diversity has been mixed; they tend to maintain avian communities with species richness similar to that of undisturbed forest ecosystems but generally do not completely preserve community composition. Using a combination of occupancy modeling and non‐metric multidimensional scaling on point‐count data, we assessed changes in avian community diversity and composition along a successional gradient in traditional Lacandon Maya agroforests and compared them to protected areas in the region. Bird species richness and diversity in Lacandon agroforests peaked in early secondary forest stages. These agroforests' mean Shannon–Weiner diversity was 5% higher than that of nearby protected areas, but their species richness was similar. Community composition in Lacandon agroforests changed throughout succession, with earlier stages supporting communities distinctly characterized by generalist species, while subsequent, less‐intensively managed stages tended to support more forest‐dwellers. The bird community observed in even the most mature secondary forest stages in Lacandon agroforests differed from that of undisturbed rain forest ecosystems. These results demonstrate the potential of traditional Lacandon agroforestry management to conserve avian biodiversity while ensuring food sovereignty for farmers. However, because the community composition of early‐successional stages was different than later stages, shortening fallow cycles and reducing forest cover to increase agricultural production will limit the species this system can support. This study illustrates the value of incorporating traditional agroecosystems into conservation planning as well as maintaining protected areas, because the latter serve as refugia for species that require undisturbed forest habitat in an agroecological matrix.
Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.
... The village has approximately 300 inhabitants. The Lacandon Maya defines themselves as jalach' winik (Lacandon Mayan for "true men"), as they have inhabited the territory for over 200 years and have developed a way of life which is highly interrelated with the jungle (De Vos 2002;Marion Singer 2000;Nations and Nigh 1980). Although it is believed that this cultural group is descended from other Maya groups, they practice a complex natural resource management system, which includes milpa cultivation for self-provisioning, although recently ecotourism has become their principle economic activity (Pastor-Alfonso, Gómez López, and Espeso-Molinero 2012;Trench 2005). ...
... The example that best illustrates this proposal within the study region is the Maya forest garden, as documented by Ford and Nigh (2009). Based on longterm ethnographic and agroecological studies by Nigh in LCh (Nations and Nigh 1980;Nigh 2008) and the approaches of Historical Ecology and Paleoecology developed by Ford (2006Ford ( , 2008 in the El Pilar Archeological Site and Flora and Fauna Reserve on the border between Belize and Guatemala, the authors present a novel proposal that Maya forests as a whole represent a domesticated meta-landscape based on the milpa-forest garden cycle. This is a cultural strategy common to most Maya villages of balancing management of forest cover with the local population´s agricultural needs as a result of thousands of years of experimentation and development of agroforestry systems (Ford and Nigh 2015;Gómez-Pompa 2003). ...
... This is a cultural strategy common to most Maya villages of balancing management of forest cover with the local population´s agricultural needs as a result of thousands of years of experimentation and development of agroforestry systems (Ford and Nigh 2015;Gómez-Pompa 2003). The Maya milpa is a sophisticated, intensive agroforestry system (in terms of labor and yield) that is initiated by planting annual maize-bean-squash crops associated with over 90 other plant varieties belonging to 60 species (Nations and Nigh 1980;Terán and Rasmussen 2009). Space is made for planting by clearing vegetation and then burning at low temperatures (pyrolysis), which liberates nutrients (such as calcium in tropical zones); restores nitrogen; adds phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and manganese to the soil; and generates significant accumulation of bio-available carbon while also reducing weed propagation as a result of burning woody vegetation (Faust 2010;Nigh and Diemont 2013). ...
We pose that Agroecology, which is already a hybrid science, is further overcoming disciplinary isolation and stagnation through explicit processes of interdisciplinary recombination, in what might be termed “second generation hybridization”. We refer to the intellectual contact zone of Agroecology – mainly with Cultural Geography, Historical Ecology, Archeology, Ecological Anthropology, and Ethnoecology – as “Historical Agroecology”. We discuss the following five theoretical methodological foundations of our proposal toward an Historical Agroecology: (1) regional agroecological histories, (2) agroecological landscapes as palimpsests: human-mediated disturbances and their cumulative effects, (3) alpha and beta as agrobiodiversity on the table: manifestations of human niche construction, (4) agroecological ethos as landscapes of knowledge, and (5) infrapolitics and collective action as other forms of agroecological resistance aside from social movements. We illustrate these points through case studies based on our research in peasant communities of the Maya lowlands in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Chiapas, and Campeche. We conclude by reflecting on the need to further develop historical agroecological perspectives in those regions with agricultural systems that have resulted from profound diachronic legacies that are spatially rooted in broad geographical areas.
... Agroforestry systems have borrowed from biomimicry theory since the 1970s and have been promoted as a land use strategy for addressing food security and sustainable agricultural production (Nair 1993;Somarriba and Beer 2011), biodiversity conservation (Nair 1993;McNeely and Schroth 2006;Bhagwat et al. 2008), and restoring connectivity to fragmented landscapes (Nair 1993;Laurance 2004;McNeely 2004;Schroth 2004;Montagnini et al. 2011). Integrating indigenous practices of intercropping non-timber, multi-purpose tree species, and managing long fallow periods (e.g. ...
... Agroforestry systems have borrowed from biomimicry theory since the 1970s and have been promoted as a land use strategy for addressing food security and sustainable agricultural production (Nair 1993;Somarriba and Beer 2011), biodiversity conservation (Nair 1993;McNeely and Schroth 2006;Bhagwat et al. 2008), and restoring connectivity to fragmented landscapes (Nair 1993;Laurance 2004;McNeely 2004;Schroth 2004;Montagnini et al. 2011). Integrating indigenous practices of intercropping non-timber, multi-purpose tree species, and managing long fallow periods (e.g. ...
... Agroforestry systems have borrowed from biomimicry theory since the 1970s and have been promoted as a land use strategy for addressing food security and sustainable agricultural production (Nair 1993;Somarriba and Beer 2011), biodiversity conservation (Nair 1993;McNeely and Schroth 2006;Bhagwat et al. 2008), and restoring connectivity to fragmented landscapes (Nair 1993;Laurance 2004;McNeely 2004;Schroth 2004;Montagnini et al. 2011). Integrating indigenous practices of intercropping non-timber, multi-purpose tree species, and managing long fallow periods (e.g. ...
Over the past 30 years, successional agroforestry systems (SAFS) have been increasingly promoted in Latin America as an approach for recovering soils and improving agro-ecosystems in degraded landscapes. Successional agroforestry systems (SAFS) are complex, multi-strata systems composed of species assemblages that resemble native forest structures. The concept of SAFS integrates indigenous knowledge of intercropping multi-purpose subsistence species, modern agroforestry techniques, and applications of assisted natural regeneration to emphasize biodiversity, adaptive management, and the use of ecological succession to establish a productive system. Much like the management of assisted regeneration of forest stands, mimicking natural ecosystems in agroecosystems requires the knowledge of species survival, growth, functional traits, and niche resource requirements in order to appropriately select multi-functional species and to develop spatial arrangements for stratified stand structures. In recent years, conceptual theories have been proposed that support parallels drawn between natural succession models of forest stand development to management of SAFS. This chapter summarizes background theory to ground the reader in key principles of ecological regeneration and silvicultural management; provides examples that have tested biomimicry hypotheses in agroforestry systems in the tropics; and introduces three case studies from current SAFS in Brazil, Nicaragua, and Belize to examine their potential to promote agro-biodiversity, regenerate severely disturbed agricultural landscapes, diversify harvest yields, and reduce ecological and economic risks associated with conventional agricultural systems.
... Gráfico 1 Procesos en línea histórica de Lacanjá Chansayab Fuente: Elaboración propia con base en trabajo de campo y revisión bibliográfica en (Baer & Merrifield, 1981;Boremanse, 1984;Chanona, 2011;De Vos 1988;Diechtl, 1982;Duby y Blom, 2006;Levy et al., 2002;Naranjo et al., 2004;Nations & Night, 1980;Tejada, 2009;M. Vásquez & Ramos, 1992). ...
... La ubicación de los espacios domésticos y producción cambió con el asentamiento permanente y la titulación de tierras a comuneros; las milpas siguen siendo de menos de dos hectáreas y como antes se encuentran lejos de los espacios domésticos (Ochoa et al., 2021). Al dejar de vivir en los límites de las milpas, el trabajo de deshierbe no es diario sino algunas veces por semana, la milpa tradicional pasó a ser una modificada (Baer y Merrifield, 1981;Nations y Night, 1980). Lo anterior se relaciona con la pérdida de control sobre el dónde, cómo y cuándo llevar a cabo esta práctica transitando de ser elementos autónomos a enajenados. ...
This article analyzes and presents the processes related to the transformations in the food provision practices of domestic groups in a context of sociocultural change in Lacanjá Chansayab for more than 70 years. Based on the theory of cultural control, an ethnographic study, participant observation and documentary review were carried out to identify the food practices that have persisted and those that have been incorporated in this place. It is concluded that their practices move from an autonomous cultural environment to an alienated one and domestic groups have appropriated foreign elements to maintain several of these and reproduce others. The transformations found threaten their food system and affect their autonomy and food security.
... These systems cycle through three stages of production, starting with field crops, progressing to shrubs and then to the trees, before returning to field crops. Therefore, they direct natural succession and are able to yield resources from a polyculture with as many as 60 plant species and without inputs of seeds, fertilizer, or pesticides [130,131]. For six of those systems analysed, the EYR ranged from 4.5 to 50.7 with an REN ranging from 0.72 to 0.97, indicating a high level of sustainability [131]. ...
... Long term studies show that it takes some years until manure or legume fertilized systems (in this case corn) reach a comparable productivity to systems fertilized with mineral fertilizers [139]. However, in the end, manure and legume fertilized systems were both more resistant to draughts, maintaining their yields in drought years [130]. As mentioned above (see Section 3.1.6) ...
Modern industrial agriculture is largely responsible for environmental problems, such as biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and alteration of biogeochemical cycles or greenhouse gas emission. Agroecology, as a scientific discipline as well as an agricultural practice and movement, emerged as a response to these problems, with the goal to create a more sustainable agriculture. Another response was the emergence of permaculture, a design system based on design principles, as well as a framework for the methods of ecosystem mimicry and complex system optimization. Its emphasis, being on a conscious design of agroecosystems, is the major difference to other alternative agricultural approaches. Agroecology has been a scientific discipline for a few decades already, but only recently have design principles for the reorganization of faming systems been formulated, whereas permaculture practitioners have long been using design principles without them ever being scrutinized. Here, we review the scientific literature to evaluate the scientific basis for the design principles proposed by permaculture co-originator, David Holmgren. Scientific evidence for all twelve principles will be presented. Even though permaculture principles describing the structure of favorable agroecosystems were quite similar to the agroecological approach, permaculture in addition provides principles to guide the design, implementation, and maintenance of resilient agroecological systems.
... Es así que ha sido considerada como una de las áreas de mayor prioridad para la conservación de la biodiversidad en el país, a pesar de que en menos de cinco décadas su cobertura selvática ha disminuido en más del 50 %. Como consecuencia de las actividades humanas en las regiones tropicales del mundo, se aprecia una clara tendencia continua y creciente hacia la eliminación y modificación de las selvas húmedas, principalmente por: (i) aumento de la población humana y su correspondiente demanda de alimentos y otros recursos; (ii) extracciones desmesuradas de los recursos selváticos provocando fuertes procesos degradativos; (iii) orientaciones equívocas al considerar inagotables los recursos de la selva; y (iv) poca atención a su conservación y al desarrollo de sistemas de aprovechamiento persistente (Miranda 1975, Farnworth & Golley 1977, Nelson 1977, Muench-Navarro 1978, Rzedowski 1978, UNESCO 1980, Nations & Nigh 1980, Casco-Montoya 1984, Anderson 1990, Vaśquez-Sańchez & Ramos-Olmos 1992, FAO 1994, Martínez et al. 1994, Challenger & Soberón 2008, Hernández-Ruedas et al. 2014. ...
... La tendencia actual en el uso del suelo en la Selva Lacandona es similar a la de otras regiones tropicales del mundo. Así, uno de los problemas más serios que enfrenta la región Lacandona, es la disminución de su área selvática, como consecuencia de un fuerte proceso de colonización, la expansión de las vías de comunicación, la tala inmoderada de las masas forestales y la incorporación de nuevas áreas de selva al aprovechamiento agrícola y pecuario (Rzedowski 1978, Nations & Nigh 1980, Muench-Navarro 1982. Por ello, el estudio de las comunidades maduras de selva y el manejo que reciben por parte de los agricultores autóctonos, es importante antes de que desaparezcan y con ello se pierda la oportunidad de registrar su flora y fauna y el conocimiento tradicional respectivo sobre su biología y utilidad (Levy-Tacher et al. 2002, 2005, 2006. ...
Antecedentes:
Hasta mediados del siglo pasado se consideraba que la selva alta perennifolia cubría alrededor de 12.8 % de la superficie del territorio mexicano. Actualmente, sólo una pequeña porción de ella ostenta una vegetación boscosa madura ya que en su mayoría es ocupada por terrenos agrícolas, praderas y vegetación secundaria. Uno de los problemas más serios que enfrenta la región Lacandona, es la disminución de su área selvática, como consecuencia de un fuerte proceso de colonización, expansión de vías de comunicación, la tala inmoderada y la incorporación de nuevas áreas de selva para aprovechamiento agrícola y pecuario.
Pregunta:
¿Cómo es la estructura y composición en los relictos de vegetación madura o mejor conservada de la selva alta perennifolia en la comunidad Lacandona de Nahá?
Sitio de estudio y periodo de investigación:
Este estudio se realizó en la comunidad Lacandona de Nahá, ubicada al norte, en el municipio de Ocosingo, Chiapas, durante los meses de noviembre de 1993 hasta mayo de 1995.
Métodos:
Dentro de esta comunidad, se realizaron 25 levantamientos de vegetación en parcelas de 400 m² cada una (una hectárea en total) en rodales maduros de selva alta perennifolia. Los atributos de la vegetación evaluados fueron: composición florística, densidad, frecuencia, área basal y altura. Se calculó el valor de importancia de las especies en la comunidad y su contribución relativa en los seis estratos reconocidos con ayuda de los informantes lacandones.
Resultados:
En el área total muestreada se registraron 283 especies de plantas vasculares, pertenecientes a 199 géneros de 84 familias. El análisis de la estructura de la vegetación corroboró la existencia de seis estratos con alturas, una composición florística y formas vitales distintivas. La densidad en la hectárea estudiada fue de 15,632 individuos y el área basal absoluta de 136.78 m². El valor de importancia permitió definir de forma adecuada la importancia relativa de las especies en cada estrato, en concordancia con lo observado en el campo. Terminalia amazonia registró el valor de importancia más alto en el estrato arbóreo sobresaliente y en todos los demás estratos.
Conclusiones:
Se logró describir de forma detalla la composición y estructura de la selva alta perennifolia de Nahá. El apoyo de los informantes lacandones fue fundamental para el reconocimiento tanto de las zonas de selva madura, como de los estratos que la conforman. Existe una relación inversa entre la densidad y el área basal. Se destaca la importancia de evaluar cuantitativamente los relictos de vegetación madura o bien conservada, como referentes indispensables para rehabilitar áreas deterioradas o aplicar medidas correctivas de aprovechamiento de manera fundamentada.
... They also find that diversity of production does not always mean diversity of consumption; despite having highly diverse home gardens, family food consumption revolved around a few main plant species. Nations and Nigh (1980), in an anthropological study, trace ancient Mayan trade routes and food production that resulted in sustainable, traditional agricultural systems contained in tropical forest. They too list cultivated and protected plants, building connections between place-based cultivation and consumption. ...
This review of agroecology’s current work on culture and food traditions—a principle of the field and one of the FAO’s 10 Elements of Agroecology—reveals two things. First, although culture and tradition are frequently mentioned in passing, there is little published literature detailing how they intersect with agroecology. Second, mentions of tradition and culture in this corpus reveal scholarly assumptions that practicing agroecology or food sovereignty will naturally result in unspecified healthy, diversified, community-driven food choices. But consumption practices shape production practices at least as much as the reverse. Food cultures are complex, shifting, and geographically and historically informed, and must be considered within their rich contexts. Agroecology needs to critically engage with the kitchen and the table in order to achieve the holistic and multi-faceted agricultural transformations imagined by the FAO and others.
... The traditional slash-and-burn milpa agricultural system of the local Maya Lacandon inhabitants has also been increasingly replaced with intensive agricultural practices for monocultures and pastures (Barrera et al., 1977;Levy-Tacher et al., 2002). The indigenous Lacandon Maya traditional milpa farming is based on slashing and burning to provide clearings in which crops can grow (Nations and Nigh, 1980;Nigh, 2008;Nigh and Diemont, 2013). This swidden system maintains significant larger areas vegetated since it is based in polycultures including many native woody species, and requires long fallow periods during which nutrients accumulate in the vegetation and soil, weeds are controlled, and soil properties are rehabilitated (Cowgill, 1962;Reina, 1967;Douterlungne et al., 2010Douterlungne et al., , 2013. ...
Background and Aims: Agriculture in the tropics is decreasing, fragmenting and altering forests and forest landscapes. We hypothesized differences in species richness and dominance of life forms in the seed rain and in richness and survival in the recruit assemblages among mature forests, mid-successional forests,
early successional forests, pastures and milpa fields (arable lands with maize) surrounded by natural and human disturbed habitats.
Methods: Samples of seeds and plants were collected during a year in Lacanjá-Chansayab and Bonampak-Bethel, in the buffer zone of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, Mexico. We deployed 14 seed traps in 12 sites representing a gradient of vegetation succession (2 sites × 6 habitats × 14 traps; n = 168 traps). Independently, to assess changes in recruitment and early survival, we established 15 quadrats (0.5 × 2.0 m) in each of the studied forests (2 sites × 3 habitats × 15 quadrats; n = 90 quadrats).
Key results: We collected ~13,600 seeds of 144 species from 48 botanical families. Mature forests had the highest seed rain species richness (60-61) and pastures (14-11) the lowest. We observed a decline in species richness and a change in dominance of life forms in the seed rain from less disturbed to most perturbed habitats. Mature forests included seeds of diverse tree species while the assemblage in pastures was dominated by seeds of few grass species. Intensive
traditional milpa fields showed homogeneous seed assemblages. For the new recruits, we recorded ~3,416 individuals (<0.5 m height) of 238 morphospecies in 42 families, 129 were identified to species level. The largest number of species occurred in mature and mid-successional stands compared to early forests. Annual survival of recruits was higher in mid- and late successional forests than in early ones.
Conclusions: We document species loss and widespread implification and homogenization in community composition due to pervasive effect of humans on remnant tropical lowland forests.
... Even with all of the history that has passed, including the Spanish conquest beginning in the 1520's, Spanish and English colonial rule, forced conversion to Christianity, massive population loss and displacement due to conflict and epidemic diseases and so on, the Maya and their knowledge of the environment prevail (e.g., Nations and Nigh, 1980;Argivo, 1994;Ford and Nigh, 2015) with broad implications for us all. The Maya and the tropical environment co-existed without either over-taxing the other. ...
Sustainable practices in the present are typically designed to mitigate immediate concerns over decadal timespans. In the face of exponential population growth, overuse of resources, and global climate change, this time span is inadequate; longer, more resilient and sustainable options need to be implemented. Here, we tackle the intersection of human behavior and the urban environment by taking a holistic approach-that is, a non-anthropocentric approach critical to ensure the longevity, or even survival, of the planet. We thus approach urbanism as we would any ecosystem, with the broad understanding that the urban, the rural, humans, and non-humans are all interdependent. One cannot understand cities without an understanding of the surrounding rural or non-center areas, thus making critical an appreciation of urban-rural interdependence (URI). The holistic model is based on insights from the ancient Maya of Central America-a tropical society where farmers practiced widespread, sustainable agriculture for 4,000 years without denuding the landscape. The Classic Maya accomplished this feat in large part due to their sustainable URI and cosmocentric worldview (CWV)-that is, a cosmology of conservation, or merged existence, where people, animals, plants, rivers, stones, clouds, etc., each played a role in maintaining the world. Their CWV was also expressed in urban planning through manifestations of traditional knowledge, multipurpose designs, and local resource networks. Insights from the Maya indicate that diversity is fundamental-across all scales; diverse strategies are flexible, spread risk, and are resilient in the face of change. As such, we present past lessons from Maya kings and farmers who built cities with reservoirs, causeways, monumental constructions and other urban features that integrated the built into the existing environment, ultimately resulting in green cities interspersed with farmsteads and managed biodiverse forests. In brief, our holistic model suggests possibilities for the reintegration of nature and culture, with the goal of a resilient URI.
... The Lacandon Maya is one of several indigenous groups which reside in the tropical lowland region in eastern Chiapas, Mexico near the border with Guatemala (McGee 2002). Their traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is expressed largely through their shifting agroforestry system, which allows them to conserve the surrounding forest while still obtaining the products and services they need from multiple successional stages (Figure 1 and Supplementary Materials) (Nations and Nigh 1980). The entirety of this sequential agroforestry system, including both field and fallow stages, is also known as the milpa cycle (Ford and Nigh 2010). ...
The Lacandon Maya is an indigenous group who live in Chiapas, Mexico. Their traditional lifeways involve swidden, sequential agroforestry management that mimics ecological disturbance and modifies succession. Lacandon farmers use fire to clear small plots for polyculture milpa agroforests, which they subsequently fallow. They actively manage all stages of their agroforests to provide ecosystem services and facilitate site recovery. However, it is unclear whether or how quickly the ecosystem structure of Lacandon agroforests matches that of a mature forest. Therefore, this study quantified canopy cover, basal area, ground cover, and litter layers and depth to empirically evaluate successional trends in vegetation and litter structure. Our results show that the Lacandon agroforest structure typically recovers to mature forest levels, but the speed and nature of this recovery vary by metric. They also indicate Lacandon traditional agroforestry is predicated on nuanced understanding of tropical forest successional dynamics, as illustrated by Lacandon farmers’ recognition of successional stages that correspond to patterns in vegetation and leaf litter structure. As such, Lacandon ecological knowledge has the potential to facilitate the restoration of degraded tropical forests in Chiapas, Mexico. However, our findings also demonstrate that shortening fallow periods will undermine the ecological integrity of this traditional agricultural system.
... Ethnographic data on the productivity of traditional lowland Maya swidden agriculture were collated and standardized to estimate the number of hectares necessary to support one person. Data on swidden productivity were drawn from Cowgill (75)(76)(77), Griffin (78), Schwartz (79,80), Nations and Nigh (81), and Ford and Nigh (37). Standardization entailed, among other adjustments, normalizing the annual productivity of different fallow regimes to multiyear averages. ...
Classic Maya civilization in detail
Lidar (a type of airborne laser scanning) provides a powerful technique for three-dimensional mapping of topographic features. It is proving to be a valuable tool in archaeology, particularly where the remains of structures may be hidden beneath forest canopies. Canuto et al. present lidar data covering more than 2000 square kilometers of lowland Guatemala, which encompasses ancient settlements of the Classic Maya civilization (see the Perspective by Ford and Horn). The data yielded population estimates, measures of agricultural intensification, and evidence of investment in landscape-transforming infrastructure. The findings indicate that this Lowland Maya society was a regionally interconnected network of densely populated and defended cities, which were sustained by an array of agricultural practices that optimized land productivity and the interactions between rural and urban communities.
Over the past 30 years, successional agroforestry systems (SAFS) have been increasingly promoted in Latin America as an approach for recovering soils and improving agro-ecosystems in degraded landscapes. Successional agroforestry systems (SAFS) are complex, multi-strata systems composed of species assemblages that resemble native forest structures. The concept of SAFS integrates indigenous knowledge of intercropping multipurpose subsistence species, modern agroforestry techniques, and applications of assisted natural regeneration to emphasize biodiversity, adaptive management, and the use of ecological succession to establish a productive system. Much like the management of assisted regeneration of forest stands, mimicking natural ecosystems in agroecosystems requires the knowledge of species survival, growth, functional traits, and niche resource requirements in order to appropriately select multifunctional species and to develop spatial arrangements for stratified stand structures. In recent years, conceptual theories have been proposed that support parallels drawn between natural succession models of forest stand development to management of SAFS. This chapter summarizes background theory to ground the reader in key principles of ecological regeneration and silvicultural management, provides examples that have tested biomimicry hypotheses in agroforestry systems in the tropics, and introduces three case studies from current SAFS in Brazil, Nicaragua, and Belize to examine their potential to promote agro-biodiversity, regenerate severely disturbed agricultural landscapes, diversify harvest yields, and reduce ecological and economic risks associated with conventional agricultural systems.
If one considers the Maya forest as a domesticated landscape, as an alternative to what prevailing views of “shifting agriculture” have posited, a new view of the Classic Maya landscape is envisioned. The milpa cycle is a land use system first encountered during the Spanish conquest that ensures consistent availability of resources when envisioned over a 20-year cycle. The cycle includes open fields emphasizing annual crops, perennial succession focused on products used in home and maintenance, and closed-canopy forests for fruits and products used in construction. Recognizing that land use is dependent on knowledge, skill, and labor, we consider the whole production cycle in providing sustenance and shelter, as well as a habitat for wildlife. Modeling the milpa cycle presents an example of the Maya transformation and adaptation of their landscape to provide for burgeoning populations amidst the tropical woodlands. To test the limits of the cycle and its viability in a real-world context, we create a spatial model of land use covering an 18 square kilometer settlement area at El Pilar using ArcGIS and knowledge of Maya dietary requirements. The results guide a discussion of the sustainability and sufficiency of the milpa cycle within the Maya forest.
How do subsistence communities conceptualize their seed sovereignty? What do peasants perceive to be the principal threats to their seed sovereignty and how do they respond to these threats?; and How do local seed sovereignty initiatives relate to the broader ideologies, goals, and strategies of the global seed sovereignty movement? Local conceptions of seeds as a commons are contributing to a multidimensional decommodification project of peasant agriculture and indigenous autonomy. I analyze one particular initiative targeting environmental deterioration and climate change, two of the most salient threats to these communities' seed sovereignty: efforts to halt widespread chemicalization of subsistence agriculture.
Domestic activities, involving productive and reproductive spheres, are mainly performed by women, requiring a great amount of knowledge and skills that are poorly represented in the literature and often undervalued in the society. Women’s role in the food system was investigated in Lacanjá Chansayab, Mexico, a village inhabited by ~400 Lacandon Maya
people. This research included participant observation for three months in the community and semi-structured interviews with 10 cis-women and 5 cis-men documenting their recipes, the relationships that are developed along their work in the food systems and actions for the restoration of traditional food. Women’s roles in food systems are central; they have an intricate knowledge of their environment and have principal roles in producing, obtaining, and transforming biodiversity into diverse meals within the kitchenspace. But they do more than producing, collecting, and mixing of ingredients. Their role in the food systems creates diferent types of relationships; the kitchenspace is a source of empowerment, traditional food is crucial for maintaining biocultural memory, and for establishing relationships with other-than-human beings. How�ever, serving traditional foods is also a potential source for discrimination against their families even from members of their own community. It was recognized by participants that traditional food system is a medium for biocultural restoration in their community. Dignifying women’s work, views, techniques, and knowledge in traditional food systems is critical
for food sovereignty, social justice, and biocultural restoration.
This article examines how landscape modification was key to the development of an urbanizing society within a valley in Chiapas, Mexico. The Late Preclassic (400 bc–ad 250) site of Noh K'uh demonstrates how both the altered and unaltered environment signified the importance of cosmological concepts within this society. In an area rich with mountains and caves, the natural landscape offered residents opportunities to create symbolically meaningful living spaces. Evidence from local settlements reveals how the cosmological universe played a guiding role during the site's peak growth period, suggesting that other common contributors (such as economic and militaristic needs) of expansion may have been secondary.
Cultural ecosystem services, such as aesthetic and spiritual appreciation, recreation, and education, are intangible and nonmaterial benefits people gain from ecosystems. The cultural services that agroforests provide, in turn, enhance provisioning, supporting, and regulating ecosystem services. However, cultural services are often ignored in ecosystem service assessments, largely because many are intangible and difficult to quantify. Because agroforests are socioecological systems, both environmental and sociocultural changes can influence agroforestry management. These changes can be adaptive, enhancing the sustainability and resilience of agroforests, or erosive, undermining the integrity and well-being of both ecological and human communities. We describe several case studies illustrating the range of cultural ecosystem services provided by agroforests, how socioeconomic shifts drive changes in agroforestry management, and frameworks for evaluating these cultural services.
RESUMEN
El estudio del aprovechamiento animal en las ciudades mayas de tierras bajas ha ido en considerable aumento durante los últimos años, incorporando metodologías que han permitido discernir prácticas de cacería, manejo, y cautiverio de algunas especies. En Palenque, los estudios zooarqueológicos poseen una tradición netamente biológica, los cuáles han sido relevantes para entender el aprovechamiento de la fauna en el sitio. Sin embargo, orientados casi en su totalidad en identificar las especies encontradas, carecen de un enfoque social. Desde 2016, el Proyecto Regional Palenque (PREP) ha llevado a cabo estudios zooarqueológicos en el Grupo IV de Palenque, un conjunto habitacional de élite del clásico tardío, en dónde a través de la flotación de sedimentos se ha recuperado una variada fauna, principalmente peces dulceacuícolas, así como restos botánicos que nos permite una interpretación más detallada de los paleopaisajes que rodeaban los asentamientos y discernir prácticas de manejo de poblaciones animales dentro y en los alrededores de las ciudades mayas.
Were the ancient Coast Salish farmers? Conventional anthropological wisdom asserts that the ethnographically known communities of the Northwest Coast of North America were “complex hunter-fisher-gatherers” who lacked any form of concerted plant food cultivation and production. Despite decades of extensive ethnobotanical and paleoethnobotanical study throughout the Pacific Northwest demonstrating the contrary, this “classic anomaly” is still a cornerstone of anthropological and archaeological canons. The recent discovery of a spectacularly preserved wetland wapato (Indian potato, Sagittaria latifolia ) garden, built 3,800 years ago in Katzie traditional territory near Vancouver, British Columbia, has helped recast this picture, alongside evidence for other forms of resource management practiced by Northwest Coast peoples. This article examines “origins of agriculture” stories from three distinctive perspectives: Coast Salish Katzie people who cultivated wapato for millennia; settlers who colonized the Fraser River Delta historically, bringing with them their own ideas about what constitutes farming; and archaeologists, who are challenged by these data to reevaluate their own understandings of these cultural constructs. These perspectives have critical bearing on the historical appropriation of lands and waterways by settler communities in British Columbia as well as contemporary questions of sovereignty and stewardship in this region and well beyond.
This chapter presents a critique of factors inhibiting progress in Maya economic studies, an introduction to approaches that avoid those pitfalls and examples of successful applications of strategic management theory and sociological organization studies. Some errors identified in current studies include shifts in terminology from relative to absolute; huge spatial and temporal frames of reference obscuring patterns and creating continuities, thus minimizing the degree of change; arguments unacceptable in logical and scientific discourse to criticize alternative interpretations, and other fallacies. Strategic management analysis can be applied to specific features of economies, avoiding such errors and overly broad typological concepts (e.g., “market economy,” “redistribution,” “barter,” “inalienable property”). Instead specific aspects of those and other parts of economies are studied as sets composed of variable elements each of which can be evaluated on relative scales. Successful recent applications to Maya economy are summarized, guiding to a vast literature in the sociology organization and of strategic management on “embeddedness,” manipulation of the “biographies of things,” “economic cultures,” “Trust,” innovation legitimation, vertical integration, institutional agency, and hopefully, providing a new direction in the study of Maya economies.
Violent conflicts are frequently associated with detrimental or neutral effects on economic, social, and environmental development; by extension, one might expect similar effects on agrobiodiversity. However, as this study suggests, the impacts of conflicts are not necessarily all negative or neutral. Indeed, conflicts may also create favorable political conditions for the implementation of community-driven agrobiodiversity management. Drawing on ethnographic research in the indigenous central region of Chiapas, Mexico, where the insurgent Zapatista movement (EZLN) has a strong influence, we examine the impact of the agrarian conflict between this indigenous movement and the Mexican government on the development of agrobiodiversity conservation initiatives. Two research questions guide this paper: (1) What has been the impact of the conflict on communities’ subsistence agriculture and seed sovereignty? and (2) To what extent has the local seed sovereignty movement—an outgrowth of the Zapatista conflict—influenced agrobiodiversity conservation? Our findings suggest that the conflict has led to the implementation of grassroots agroecology and food and seed sovereignty projects that could ultimately strengthen agrobiodiversity in the communities under the influence of the Zapatista movement. We suggest that these projects highlight two elements essential for long-term agrobiodiversity conservation: first, the strategic relationship between agrobiodiversity conservation and these communities’ food security and seed sovereignty, particularly in the context of conflict; and second, the central role that peasant communities play in the preservation, reproduction, and evolution of agrobiodiversity. We conclude that the overall long-term impact of the Zapatista conflict on local agrobiodiversity has in fact been positive.
Background and Aims: Wild edible mushroom traditional management strategies have been described for both highlands and lowlands in Mexico. It seems that, in the lowlands, the usage of this resource is lower than in the highlands. Ecological ethnomycology is concerned with understanding how certain ecological patterns in mushrooms influence traditional management strategies. In this study we present a comparison between the edible mushrooms’ fruit body availability in two distinct ecological units: The Highlands of Chiapas and the Lacandon Rainforest. Our hypothesis was that the fruit body availability is higher in both the highlands and preserved vegetation, which might explain a greater usage in these ecosystems, as well as the opportunistic usage of mushrooms in the lowlands. Methods: During 2009 and 2010, we monitored the fruit body abundance, biomass, spatial and temporal frequencies, as indicators of edible mushroom availability in rectangular transects in three sites per ecological setting (highlands/lowlands) both in preserved vegetation sites and agroecosystems in Chiapas, Mexico. Key results: In the highlands, a greater richness (35 ethnotaxa) and biomass production (12,345.2 g) was recorded, but the lowlands yielded a greater number of fruit bodies (3212) and a higher spatial and temporal frequency (76.6% and 40% respectively). Conclusions: In both ecological settings, edible mushroom availability allow their use; however, it has different ecological traits. This may explain why, in the highlands, people use a more diverse array of species and prefer those of greater biomass. Contrastingly, in the lowlands less species are used, but they are more abundant and have a greater spatial and temporal frequency. Our data demonstrate that the lowlands and agroecosystems are spaces with edible mushroom availability comparable to that of highland forests.
Employing resilience as the theoretical and methodological framework and focusing on governance, this long-term anthropological study analyzes the socio-ecological system of a small indigenous community, with community-based tourism development. After 10 years of ethnographic and participatory work with the Lacandon Maya of Nahá, Mexico, our anthropological research explores the complexities of community governance and its role in protecting the socio-ecological system. The processes of land restitution initiated by the Mexican government and the arrival of migrants from different ethnic groups in the surrounding areas have resulted in significant socio-ecological adjustments being made at the community level. A self-regulated governance system is evaluated to understand the drivers and variables that generated vulnerabilities in the system, as well as the factors that fostered resilience in the establishment of the Nahá’s Natural Protected Area of Flora and Fauna. Our results show that although the current Lacandon political organization is fairly recent, pressures from neighboring communities have fostered resilience responses. To protect their space from such pressures, the Lacandon, convinced of their ethnic legitimacy as guardians of the Lacandon Jungle, have internalized the official political-environmentalist discourse. This role has had critical implications for the birth and development of the Indigenous tourism system.
What role do emotions play in the creation of interpretive frameworks that allow communities to respond effectively to the challenges posed by climate change? This article explores this question empirically from the perspective of small indigenous peasant communities in the central region of Chiapas, Mexico. The study shows that the spiritual, cultural and material meanings that indigenous communities assign to the traditional milpa agroecosystem and to their native seeds, particularly maize, converge in a conjunction of emotions that enables these communities to recognize the risks posed by environmental degradation and climate change, and to mobilize politically around the frame of seed sovereignty. Particularly important is the informal system by which children inherit maize seed from their parents, which imposes on new generations the moral and social obligation of reproducing the milpa. This reproduction is necessary to keep alive the spirits of their ancestors and deities, which are thought to be embodied in the seeds, and to preserve the environmental conditions needed for future generations to live from the maize and the land. The regional social movement around seed sovereignty embraces and amplifies the emotions that underlie this moral and cultural commitment, at the same time as it emphasizes the risks posed by conventional agricultural practices (agrochemical use, deforestation, and quasi-monoculture) and environmental deterioration to the sustenance of the milpa and seeds. Three key foci comprise the agenda of this movement: agroecology, agrobiodiversity conservation, and adaptation of the milpa to climate change.
The Late Classic Maya village of Joya de Cerén's extraordinary preservation by the Loma Caldera eruption circa 660 CE allows for a unique opportunity to study ancient Mesoamerican landscape management and agricultural practices. Various fruit trees, annual and root crops, fiber producers and other useful plants were cultivated within the village center, creating productive house-lot gardens. Extensive agricultural outfields of maize, manioc, squash, common beans, and numerous weedy species also have been documented through intensive paleoethnobotanical recovery methods and demonstrate the practice of multi-cropped or polyculture farming during Prehispanic times. The assorted array of economically useful species reveals the diversity of foodstuffs readily accessible to the inhabitants on a daily basis that were not simply the annual crops planted within the outfields. The long history of paleoethnobotanical research at this exceptionally preserved site provides the opportunity to not only understand what plant species the ancient inhabitants of this village utilized in their daily lives but also how the villagers perceived, managed, and manipulated their landscape in order to ensure a diverse and nutritional diet.
Here we studied HLA blocks and haplotypes in a group of 218 Lacandon Maya Native American using a high-resolution next generation sequencing (NGS) method. We assessed the genetic diversity of HLA class I and class II in this population, and determined the most probable ancestry of Lacandon Maya HLA class I and class II haplotypes. Importantly, this Native American group showed a high degree of both HLA homozygosity and linkage disequilibrium across the HLA region and also lower class II HLA allelic diversity than most previously reported populations (including other Native American groups). Distinctive alleles present in the Lacandon population include HLA-A*24:14 and HLA-B*40:08. Furthermore, in Lacandons we observed a high frequency of haplotypes containing the allele HLA-DRB1*04:11, a relatively frequent allele in comparison with other neighboring indigenous groups. The specific demographic history of the Lacandon population including inbreeding, as well as pathogen selection, may have elevated the frequencies of a small number of HLA class II alleles and DNA blocks. To assess the possible role of different selective pressures in determining Native American HLA diversity, we evaluated the relationship between genetic diversity at HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-DRB1 and pathogen richness for a global dataset and for Native American populations alone. In keeping with previous studies of such relationships we included distance from Africa as a covariate. After correction for multiple comparisons we did not find any significant relationship between pathogen diversity and HLA genetic diversity (as measured by polymorphism information content) in either our global dataset or the Native American subset of the dataset. We found the expected negative relationship between genetic diversity and distance from Africa in the global dataset, but no relationship between HLA genetic diversity and distance from Africa when Native American populations were considered alone.
This Chapter describes and illustrates the role of plants in traditional Lacandon culture, and provides a preliminary sketch of the Lacandon botanical classification system.
hot. Lit: ‘hot’. Refers to unfavourable soil conditions and plants that have a detrimental effect on the soil, neighbouring plants and crops. Plants include si'si'k'uuts, 'ak su'uk (Bothriochloa laguroides), and si'si'k'uuts (Erechtites hieracifolia). Additionally, the presence of these plants indicates hard soil. Ant: siis ‘cold’. [Source: BM]
The botanical inventory contains 769 entries organized like a dictionary and presented in the alphabetical order of the Lacandon language. It provides a number of fields of data, including descriptions from Lacandon consultants, in their own language, followed by English translations, botanical descriptions of the species, a list of affiliated species according to Lacandon classification system, and a list of the uses for the species and descriptions on their preparation. Each entry includes the names of the species in the other Yucatecan languages, notes, and cross-references to the relevant semantic domains in the ethnographic inventory.
The traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of Lacandon Maya is expressed in their swidden (i.e., slash-and-burn), sequential agroforestry system. Successional pathways are initiated through controlled burns of secondary forest and by cultivating milpa: a swidden polyculture agroecosystem dominated by maize (corn; Zea mays). While past research demonstrated that traditional Maya milpas yield large quantities of corn that can meet caloric requirements for Lacandon communities, no studies have comprehensively quantified the yields of other crops cultivated in Lacandon milpas or assessed whether they can meet other nutritional requirements for local people. Using a case study approach, this research measured the agricultural yields and nutritional content of all foods (including crops and wild game) harvested from a traditional Lacandon milpa. Following traditional Lacandon agroforestry management practices, we performed a controlled burn of secondary forest and planted crops and trees in an experimental milpa in Lacanja Chansayab, Chiapas, Mexico. Over 3 years, we harvested, weighed, and calculated the nutritional content of all foodstuffs obtained from the milpa. Assuming an average family size of 5.3 individuals, yields from an average-sized milpa can meet most United States Food and Drug Administration daily value nutritional requirements per capita, including calories, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, protein, vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, zinc, and niacin. Diets derived exclusively from milpa may be deficient in saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, calcium, and iodine, and harvests vary intra- and inter-annually. Lacandon farmers can supplement these harvests by foraging in their managed forest. These results underscore the potential of Lacandon agroforestry management to provide rural smallholder farmers in the Lacandon rainforest with food sovereignty while maintaining nearby forest cover to conserve biodiversity and other ecosystem services.
The Lacandon Maya have managed their lands in Chiapas, Mexico for hundreds of years without long-term soil degradation by applying their traditional swidden agroforestry system. Lacandon land managers plant and care for a number of tree species during the fallow period in part to facilitate natural succession and enhance soil fertility. We evaluated the effects of five of these species (Poulsenia armata, Cedrela odorata, Enterolobium cyclocarpum, Swietenia macrophylla, and Lonchocarpus guatemalensis) on soil-dwelling nematodes, which play an important role in biogeochemical cycling. Only L. guatemalensis had a significant effect on the population of plant parasitic nematodes relative to the total nematode population, which demonstrates its potential utility in reducing pressures on plant growth and facilitating the regeneration of vegetation in secondary forests. In general, larger diameter trees tended to support larger nematode populations in nearby soils, possibly due to organic matter enrichment. Bacterivorous nematodes dominated the nematode community throughout succession, as is typical in agroecosystems with regular organic matter enrichment. However, counter to expectations, bacterivorous nematode dominance did not appear to be directly related to organic matter deposition in Lacandon agroforests. Nematode trophic group populations changed over time in secondary Lacandon agroforests, alternating between elevated and low populations in successive Lacandon agroforestry management stages. Our results demonstrate that the effects these trees have on soil fertility are likely species-specific and not necessarily a function of altering surrounding nematode communities. The inconclusiveness of our findings underscores the challenge of discriminating the individual species’ effects in the context of the agroforestry systems of which they are a part, particularly with regard to highly variable soil microfauna communities.
Planting and rain-beckoning rituals are an extremely common way in which past and present human communities have confronted the risk of drought across a range of environments worldwide. In tropical environments, such ceremonies are particularly salient despite widespread assumptions that water supplies are unproblematic in such regions. We demonstrate for the first time that two common but previously under-appreciated Maya rituals are likely planting and rain-beckoning rituals preferentially performed at certain times of the year in close step with the rainy season and the Maya agricultural cycle. We also argue for considerable historical continuity between these Classic Maya ceremonies and later Maya community rituals still performed in times of uncertain weather conditions up to the present day across Guatemala, Belize, and eastern Mexico. During the Terminal Classic period (AD 800-900), the changing role played by ancient Maya drought-related rituals fits into a wider rhetorical shift observed in Maya texts away from the more characteristic focus on royal births, enthronements, marriages, and wars towards greater emphasis on the correct perpetuation of key ceremonies, and we argue that such changes are consistent with palaeoclimatic evidence for a period of diminished precipitation and recurrent drought.
At the district stages, sustainability is shaped by the place and the citizen’s demand. As a result, the authorities resolve to the progress of sustainability pointers that quantify the progress of a community or a city. A large number of existing studies in the broader literature have examined the obstacles and approaches towards achieving sustainable cites. Among the discussed issues are the development of indicators that assess the level of sustainability of a city. Sustainable city indicators are the tool used to gauge the progress of a community or a city on selected themes or subjects relating to sustainability. Despite decades of research, the effectiveness of the sustainable city indicators is still debatable. There exist various types of sustainable indicators being studied and implemented nationally and internationally. This chapter focuses on sustainability indicators focusing in Malaysia. It is to analyse the notional context of indicators for sustainable city applied by the Malaysian authorities. The chapter also looks into the implementation of sustainable city indicators by the Shah Alam City Council as a case study. The gathered data are analysed using content analysis. The findings deliver an overall insight of sustainable city indicators used worldwide and the implementation of sustainable city indicators in Malaysia. This research facilitates the local authorities, professionals and urban planners in revising and improving the current use of sustainable city indicators.
The Classic Maya of the southern lowlands were one with world rather than one with nature, a view that promoted the conservation of their world for millennia, what I term a cosmology of conservation. I explore how their cosmocentric worldview fostered biodiversity and conservation by discussing the ceremonial circuit and pilgrimage destination of Cara Blanca, Belize. Here the Maya left a minimal footprint in the form of ceremonial buildings from which they performed ceremonies, doing their part to maintain the world at several of the 25 water bodies/portals to the underworld. The Maya intensified their visits when several prolonged droughts struck between 800 and 900 ce; it was to no avail, and many Maya emigrated and have successfully renegotiated their relationship in the world to the present day. Their history of engagement serves as a lesson for present society, one that cannot be ignored.
Las representaciones “positivas” de los lacandones les ofrecen ventajas claras a corto plazo, confiriendo cierto capital simbólico y político en sus relaciones con foráneos y en sus diversas luchas, además de variados beneficios económicos. Pero, a final de cuentas, es cuestionable si su imagen como pueblo “originario” y conservacionista “innato” les ayude en el largo plazo, ya que forma parte de un discurso fundamentalmente colonialista y puede limitar las oportunidades de las comunidades lacandonas a decidir su futuro y definir el carácter de su inserción en la sociedad nacional.
Recent research in some parts of the Maya world supports the idea that the ancient Maya consumed manioc; yet what remains unclear are the more regional and local patterns of use. In this research article we provide evidence in the form of starch grains, recovered from both grinding stones and ceramic sherds, to argue that domesticated manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz), was processed and consumed during the Late to Terminal Classic (600–900 CE) by the Maya living at La Corona, in northwestern Petén, Guatemala. We argue that manioc was not likely a famine food for the Maya living at La Corona; instead it may have been an important resource. Overall, our research provides much-needed data regarding regional-specific uses of manioc and contributes to ongoing discussions of reconstructing ancient Maya diets.
Mayan contemporaries use a variety of agrosilvicultural techniques that form the foundation of their rainforest management system. Rainforest management has become extremely important for the supply of both domestic and wildlife resources that provide animal protein for their diet. The cultivation of biodiverse fields of crops (milpa) using the slash-and-burn technique has encouraged the use of the bushland (secondary vegetation) for hunting. Based on an ethnographic study, forest resource management is analyzed as a subsistence strategy among the indigenous Mayans in Palenque in order to understand similar practices in the past.
Human-animal interactions have played crucial roles in the development of complex societies across the globe. This study examines the human-leporid (cottontail and jackrabbit) relationship at the pre-Hispanic (AD 1–550) city of Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico and tests the hypothesis that leporids were managed or bred for food and secondary products within the urban core. We use stable isotope analysis (δ¹³Capatite and δ¹⁸Oapatite) of 134 leporid specimens from five archaeological contexts within the city and 13 modern specimens from across central Mexico to quantify aspects of leporid diet and ecology. The results demonstrate that leporids from Oztoyahualco, a residential complex associated with a unique rabbit sculpture and archaeological traces of animal butchering, exhibit the highest δ¹³Capatite values of the sample. These results imply greater consumption of human-cultivated foods, such as maize (Zea mays), by cottontails and jackrabbits at this complex and suggest practices of human provisioning. A lack of significant differences in δ¹⁸Oapatite values between ancient and modern leporids and between Oztoyahualco and other locations within Teotihuacan indicates generally similar relative humidity from sampled contexts. Results of this study support the notion that residents provisioned, managed, or bred leporids during the height of the city, and provide new evidence for mammalian animal husbandry in the ancient New World.
The Lowland Maya region has seen an enormous increase of new data over the last decade, but our progress is hampered by a tendency for cyclic return to previous theoretical positions. This results from several factors: too short a view of the discipline's history; a lack of familiarity with the rest of Mesoamerica; a lack of collaboration among archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and epigraphers; and a tendency to view alternative methodologies as competing rather than complementary. This paper synthesizes some of the major new discoveries and suggests where progress might be made if differing approaches were used in concert rather than in isolation.
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