Monoscapes - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 49

The idea of landscape redesign combined with such social challenges
is appealing; but, in truth, few have taken a radical view of what can be
achieved. 53 This is precisely why changes brought about by today's newly
emerging sustainable agriculture revolution are so important. Cultural and
natural landscapes are being transformed precisely because some power
is being put in the hands of the poorest; they are alchemists bringing forth
a new world. It is the desires, aspirations and stories of these individuals
that we must harness for a new connection between people and nature.
We are fortunate that so many heroes have recently found a way of meeting
food needs, while not damaging nature. It can be done, but it is difficult.
The path towards sustainability, which is taken by individuals in remote
places that are far removed from industrialization, must be adopted by
all of us.
I once stood upon the top of the Temple of the Giant Jaguar, 96 metres
above the floor of Tikal, the long-since abandoned capital of the Mayan
empire. Below were the crowns of giant rainforest trees, the branches of
which cracked and snapped as howler and spider monkeys leapt and
chattered. A storm swept across this Petén forest of Guatemala and lashed
me with ferocious wind and rain. Later, I reversed my way down the
vertical step ladders, and then to the dizzying steps of the lower slopes
of the pyramid. Had I been dropped here from afar, I may have been
forgiven for thinking that I gazed upon a wilderness. The Petén is, after
all, one of the world's hot spots for biological diversity, containing 200
species of mammals and 500 species of birds. I would have been right
to be awed, but wrong about the wilderness. During the Mayan Golden
Age between AD 250-900, Tikal alone supported a population of
10,000 to 40,000 people.
Since the mystifying collapse of the Mayan civilization, indigenous
people have farmed with slash-and-burn methods. Fields are cleared in
the forest, cropped for a couple of years, and then abandoned as families
move on to new sites. Over time, as the population has increased,
and as others came to log the forests, so farmers have had to reduce their
fallow periods. As a result, they returned to former fields too soon for
natural soil fertility to have been restored. Both agriculture and the forest
come under pressure - yields remain low or fall, and the forest steadily
disappears. 54
But on the edge of Petén forest, farmers are using a magic bean to
improve their soils and to save the rainforest. Some decades ago, the
velvetbean ( Mucuna pruriens ) was introduced to Central America, probably
from South Asia via the US. It did not spread far until several Honduran
and Guatemalan non-governmental organizations, in particular World
Neighbors, Cosecha and Centro Maya, discovered during the 1980s and