The Thin Green Line
Belize struggles to balance ecotourism and conservation
Dew still clings to grass as Marcos Cucul, a thirty-seven-year-old Qeqchi Mayan guide from Belize, gets out of his weathered Land Cruiser. With a worn backpack slung over his shoulder, he holds a massive flashlight in his left hand and the smoking remnant of a cigarette in his right. The melodies of dozens of bird species float through the air as the stocky man makes his way to the park’s visitor center. Vibrant red hibiscus flowers offset the lush green of the jungle and the crisp blue of the Belizean sky. The day is already warm as Cucul’s heavy trekking boots stomp up the cracked wooden steps of the Saint Herman’s Blue Hole National Park Visitor Center in the Cayo District of Belize. Cucul is one of many Belizeans who work to protect parks such as the Blue Hole.
The 575-acre preserve harbors a range of species surprisingly diverse for the park’s petite size. Orchids, bananas, and mahoganies thrive in the volcanic landscape that surrounds the park’s namesake, the Blue Hole, a water-filled limestone sinkhole. Species as furtive as the jaguar and as unassuming as the opossum find refuge near the sapphire waters.
Belize, the only country in Central America with English as its official language, attracted 220,500 foreign visitors in 2003. It’s roughly the size of Massachusetts and has a population less than half the size of Boston. With 48 percent of the country’s territory dedicated to conservation, the government has preserved nearly three times as much wilderness as eco-conscious Costa Rica has. The combination of Belize’s blossoming tourism industry, a small population, and pristine tropical environments enables the country to carry out progressive policies. But, as conservationists such as Cucul have come to understand, preserving land in developing nations is a task riddled with challenges.
Cucul’s love for the diverse Belizean landscape began when he was a child and later grew during his three-year stint as a jungle survival guide for the British Army. Today, he is a member of the Belize Cave and Wilderness Rescue Team, a certified first responder, and a volunteer firefighter.
“The more visitors that come to a site, generally, the less looting occurs — but there is greater impact on the cave’s ecosystem.”
One of Cucul’s favorite trips is through Mountain Cow Cave, one of several geological and cultural masterpiece of the Blue Hole. He estimates that fewer than two hundred people visit the cave each year, which is part of the reason it retains a regional reputation as one of the most unspoiled caves in the area.
Roos Leemhuis and Vincent de Gouw, a Dutch couple traveling by bicycle through Central America, hired Cucul to guide them through the cave. To reach the entrance, the group spends an arduous forty-five minutes climbing a trail that the jungle constantly threatens to reclaim.
On the hike, Cucul pauses and points to a patch of small, spindly ferns clumped together on the limestone hillside. The fronds blend in with the greens and browns of the thick jungle undergrowth, but Cucul effortlessly identifies them as Maidenhair Ferns. When Cucul points at them, Leemhuis recognizes the plants immediately. “We have those in Holland,” she says.
The plant, which is exclusive to Belize but can grow almost anywhere with moist soil, has become a popular houseplant in Europe and the United States. Leemhuis’s seemingly benign recognition of the fern exemplifies a challenge faced by Belizean conservationists: thieves routinely remove valuable rainforest vegetation and sell it to nurseries. Once there, either the plant or its seedlings are shipped to collectors abroad. Maidenhair Ferns sell for as little as two dollars; rare Belizean orchids can sell for hundreds.
But money is not the only reason harvesters illegally enter the park. Many of the unsanctioned trails cut by plant poachers pass by groves of pacaya trees and cohune palms. Locals harvest the pacaya’s tender flowers for traditional meals and use the palm’s small, acorn-like nuts to make cooking oil.
“They don’t harvest sustainedly [sic],” Cucul said. Poachers typically remove all of the target species in a particular area, and it may take years for the plants to return to their original numbers.
“The more visitors that come to a site, generally, the less looting occurs — but there is greater impact on the cave’s ecosystem.”
After pausing to look at the ferns, the group returns to the hike. The thin jungle path begins to climb steeply and soon the screeches of Aztec parakeets mix with the tired tourists’ heavy breathing. The trail passes the buttressed roots of ceiba trees, over established highways blazed by leafcutter ants, and under the brilliance of the quamwood tree’s yellow flowers. As Cucul plods up the steep path, he discusses the faults of Belize’s conservation policies.
“They don’t replant the broadleaf forest they log with broadleaf forest,” he says, unconsciously slapping a mosquito from his arm. Faster-growing pine trees, which are native in parts of Belize, generally replace the logged jungle, says Cucul. The sight of diverse jungle adjacent to groves of pine trees is not only counterintuitive and unsettling, but the replanting also leaves the jungle more homogeneous. If left unchecked, these intrusive species can overwhelm native plants.
Welcome to Xilbalba,” Cucul says, as the trail plateaus at the entrance of Mountain Cow. The Mayan word means “a place of fright” and refers to all entrances to the underworld, such as a cave.
After a short break, Cucul leads a scramble down a series of limestone boulders. As he descends into the chamber, the stale air muffles sound like a thick layer of snow. White limestone formations that could adorn the walls of a grand cathedral glow softly in the daylight, which still illuminates the chamber. At what appears to be a dead end, Cucul stops, flicks on his headlamp, and removes climbing gear from his backpack.
One by one, each hiker grabs the rope and descends into the cave. Cucul, Leemhuis, and de Gouw begin down a narrow passage, carefully lowering their heads to dodge the glittering stalactites that hang from the ceiling.
Soon, Cucul pauses near a calcified human skull that most likely dates back to the Late to Terminal Classic period of the Mayan Empire — approximately 1,200 years ago. It is the only known skull in the park, and its presence is an anomaly.
“If we act as responsible stewards to the land, then this beauty can be preserved for generations to come. If not, it could be gone tomorrow.”
Allan Moore, the director of the Tourism and Development Project for Belize’s National Institute of Culture and History, estimates that 10 percent of the artifacts in the area have been looted. Those that remain either lack financial value or are undiscovered, he says.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Moore says. “The more visitors that come to a site, generally, the less looting occurs — but there is greater impact on the cave’s ecosystem. That’s why proper management is so important.”
The Belize Audubon Society, the non-governmental organization that manages the park, employs only five full-time wardens to limit the incidences of looting, to control the impact of tourism on the environment, and to handle the day-to-day needs of the park.
Alex Escalante, the park director of the Blue Hole, says that the park needs more wardens but understands the unlikelihood of actually getting more staff. The annual budget for the entire preserve is only seventy-five hundred dollars (the similarly sized Oregon Caves National Monument in southwest Oregon has a budget more than fifteen times that). The Blue Hole’s budget finances everything from the sawdust used in the composting toilets to the bimonthly, armed night patrols that scour the park for illegal intruders. “Armed guards patrol the park’s interior and boundaries, but it is difficult to find a guard willing to shoot or be shot at by poachers,” Escalante says.
Despite the presence of special law enforcement officers armed with M-16s, an arrest has yet to be made. The depleted populations of pacaya shoots exemplify the continuing violations of park laws. To combat this problem, the Belize Audubon Society now employs a different tactic: education.
“We hope that by working closer with local communities we can convey the importance of preserving the sensitive ecosystems inside the park,” Escalante says. To demonstrate their commitment, on April 22, Earth Day, the park staff offered a work exchange to local school children. The staff provided food, free admittance into the park, and instruction on the importance of preserving biodiversity while the students helped remove litter within the park.
The park employees are making progress in changing the mindsets of the youth, but the children do not make decisions about the environment. When the next generation comes into power, conservationists will finally see the substantial changes they have effected in the youth, Escalante says.
After nearly an hour of plodding through the darkness of the cave, the hikers reach the geological highlight of the cave: Wonderland. The rock formations inside Wonderland look more like icicles than stone. They grow in every direction. The sight is dauntingly beautiful, and it feels as if the jagged jaws of the cave are closing. Water droplets sporadically fall from the stalactites into puddles of water. The sound, one of the park’s many symphonies, echoes off the walls of the confined space.
On the return hike, Cucul stops at the base of a give-and-take tree. Dangerous spines line the tree, and a medicinal sap flows just beneath the treacherous bark. Instead of visiting a modern hospital for everyday injuries, many indigenous people seek out the pink sap to stem bleeding and heal wounds. This reliance upon the natural world is a symbol of a larger ecological ethos held by the Belizean people. Just as seekers of the sap must fight through an armada of barbs to acquire their remedy, Belizean conservationists must struggle through modern-day challenges to protect the country’s ecological treasures.
“If we act as responsible stewards to the land, then this beauty can be preserved for generations to come – if not, it could be gone tomorrow,” Cucul says.