The Maya and the “New Useful Forest”…Why? Part 2
I met with David and Julia Sedat and the New Day-Ch’orti leaders for the first time during my second trip to the Maya region in April of 2007. At a press announcement, they revealed that they would be collaborating with the 6,000-member New Day organization to establish a New Useful Forest (NUF). It was during this trip I learned that the Ch’orti had suffered over 2,000 deaths from starvation during the previous year. This is when I decided to do everything in my power to work on developing a sustainable solution to prevent this kind of disaster from happening again.
The development of new Maya agricultural practices
The initial economic “engine” for the regeneration of the NUF landscape was the Noni tree. Although some ethnobotanists were skeptical that Noni could be productive at this seasonally dry (Feb-May) 700 meter elevation, the Noni did, in fact, flourish and its acceptability in the local market was encouraging. This is when the NUF attracted the attention of a 6000 member “New Day” organization of progressive Maya Chorti farmers from Eastern Guatemala. With encouragement from Dr. Jennifer Casolo, they sought to establish their own sustainable agriculture program based around the use of the Noni in the local communities. This was seen as the first step towards a wider commercial venture.
The NUF is achievable and sustainable because it incorporates intrinsically “Mayan” cultural strategies of land use and subsistence. The acceptance of the NUF ideals by the Chorti “New Day” movement indicates that new ideas and plant species are accepted if they are presented in a culturally coherent fashion. The NUF is situated on the steepest, least desirable land for maize (corn) farming. It does not seek to displace the spiritually entrenched cultivation of maize, but rather enhance it by making the land more fertile, sustainable, and suitable for its cultivation. This is where so many “outside” projects have failed—they do not take into consideration the “soul” of the Maya people.
The NUF is a cultural construct. It is a consciousness that is not just about trees, but harmony, efficiency, and good common sense in land use; reserving the “waste land” for permanent tree cropping, and thus developing a true useful purpose for over 60% of the landscape. A great variety of different native food crops can be grown using this adaptive and sustainable system. Altogether, a great many plant products will be utilized as foodstuffs for the local communities and as key ingredients in numerous products sought by socially conscious consumers around the world. By using efficient and competitive marketing strategies, Maya Global will make these products available through our global online marketplace.
