Maya Workshops and Mapping

In 1995, the leadership of the Toledo Maya Cultural Council (TMCC) and the Toledo Alcaldes Association (TAA) decided to seek assistance to help make a map of Maya land use as a means to demonstrate the Maya's historic rights to their lands and resources. Their decision was prompted by the Government of Belize's claims that the Maya peoples were squatters and immigrants on Crown Lands, and that they had no communal, historic or indigenous land rights; therefore, the Government of Belize was free to grant logging, toxic waste dumping and road building concessions on what the Maya people said was their land.

The TMCC and TAA received initial funding from the MacArthur and Inter-American foundations. The Indian Law Resource Center (ILRC) in Washington, D.C., advised TMCC to ask Mac Chapin at Native Lands and Bernard Nietschmann at UC Berkeley's GeoMap to collaborate on the mapping project.

On April 8, 1996 at the Indian Law Resource Center office in Washington, D.C., a meeting was held to discuss how best to go ahead with the mapping project. At this meeting were Julian Cho (TMCC), Santiago Coh (TAA); Curtis Berkey, Steve Tullberg and Armstrong Wiggins (ILRC); Mac Chapin and Bill Theilkold (Native Lands); and Bernard Nietschmann and Charles Tambiah (GeoMap, UC Berkeley). Julian Cho and Santiago Coh said it was critical to begin the project immediately because people in the communities demanded a response to the Malaysian logging. It was agreed to hold a planning meeting at the end of the month in San Antonio, Toledo District. Mac Chapin informed the group that Native Lands had a pre-existing obligation to assist on an indigenous mapping project in Bolivia, and that his group could help on the Maya project afterwards.

Agreement was made to collaborate on the Maya Mapping Project (MMP). The TMCC and TAA would be responsible for organization and logistics in the Maya communities, the ILRC would be responsible for communications and fund raising, and GeoMap would be responsible for workshop training and mapmaking.

Three principles were forged at this meeting that guided successful collaboration on the Maya Mapping Project:

1. No top-heavy control -- maintain equal sharing of responsibility and open communication
2. No bureaucracies -- keep it personal, respectful and at the same scale (TMCC, TAA, ILRC, and GeoMap are all small and small works well with small, but big wouldn't work well with small as in USAID and the TMCC)
3. No prima donnas -- this isn't about personal careers, agendas, elections or promotions, this is about something sacred, a people's land.

At a TMCC-hosted meeting in San Antonio, Toledo District, April 27-28, 1996, representatives from the UC Berkeley GeoMap team, Indian Law Resource Center, and the TMCC and TAA met to decide on what would be mapped and what would be produced. Instead of a single land use map, it was decided that an atlas would be more appropriate because it could include a more complete range of Maya contributions: maps, writings, photographs, interviews, drawings, and household survey results. A single page land use map only shows a narrow aspect of an indigenous people's claim to a homeland, whereas an atlas could provide a powerful stand alone, full-spectrum testament to validate a people's historical claim to a territory, a homeland.

The meeting was led by Julian Cho (TMCC) and Santiago Coh (TAA). Domingo Cho translated between Mopan and Kekchi speakers.

The Maya Mapping Project and the Maya Atlas was designed to be an assessment of the natural and human resources of the Maya's proposed homeland. To govern a homeland it is necessary to know what is there to govern. Therefore the Maya Mapping Project would map and inventory the Homeland communities and community lands. To do this every field would be mapped and every household would be surveyed questionnaire. People from each community would be trained to do the research.

At this meeting an itinerary was scheduled so that the first workshop would be held after the first corn planting; the subsequent community research could then be done during the rainy season when people would stay close to the village; and the second workshop would be held before the major weeding of the fields was necessary. The production schedule for this mapping work was ruled by the sun, rain and corn.

It was decided that Deborah Schaaf, from the Indian Law Resource Center office in Helena, Montana, would be the lead council in the project, assisted by Lisa Shoman, an attorney in Belize City. Joel Wainwright, a Fulbright Scholar, would help with local logistics and assessment of government map coverage for the Toledo District. Dean Roches from SPEAR (Society for the Promotion of Education and Research) in Belize City, would be responsible for administering the Maya Mapping Project funds.

Everyone had but six weeks to prepare for the first training workshop.