Day Fourteen

Farming the Forest

Renaldo Lec, center, is the advisor to Ija'tz, an eighty-four member farming cooperative.

"The only soil you'll find here is under our fingernails," jokes Ronaldo Lec. He's one of eighty-four members of a communal farm called Ija'tz in San Lucas Tolimán, a tiny Cakchiquel Maya village on the southeast shore of Lake Atitlán.

I had come to Ija'tz to learn about soil, arguably one of the most important elements in the story behind the collapse of the ancient Maya.

In Maya, Ija'tz means "seed," an appropriate name for Ronaldo's project. It's devoted to teaching today's Maya how to grow and sustain crops by mixing traditional Maya farming techniques with new science. Their model is simple: to grow everything based on a system that already exists in nature.

	This hillside on the edge of Lake Atitlán is scarred with milpas scattered across its face.

Today Ija'tz is in the experimental stages. But Ronaldo has high hopes that someday the experimental farm will serve a much larger purpose.

"I would like to make again this place paradise," he says, "where there are actually trees and food, not just coffee for sale. That's what we hope here." Then he points to the distant mountainside, littered with a patchwork of tiny milpas. "I can't stay here and see this mountain falling down."

To find out more about how ancient and modern Maya farming techniques have impacted the environment, visit MayaQuest.

Going Questal,

- Stephanie Gregory

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MayaQuest is produced by Classroom Connect as part of The Quest Channel series of online adventures.