Enclosed: Conservation, Cattle, and Commerce Among the Q’eqchi’ Maya Lowlanders

3. Commons, Customs, and Carrying Capacities: The Property and Population Traps of the Petén Frontier

83 3 Commons, Customs, and Carrying Capacities The Population and Property Traps of the Petén Frontier S atellite images reveal that within three and a half decades of colonization , forest and natural savanna cover in Petén dropped from approximately 90 percent to less than 50 percent (fig. 3.1). Seemingly in an inverse relationship, Petén’s population grew from less than 50,000 to approximately 500,000 in that same time period (fig. 3.2) (Grandia 2000). Meanwhile, farmers and meteorologists have observed dramatic reductions in total precipitation as well as the number of days with rainfall. The longer dry season, in turn, has provoked severe forest fires in Petén almost every year since 1998. Farmers complain of additional symptoms of climate change such as decreased yields, invasive weeds, pests, and even plagues of locusts. In Malthusian tones, many biodiversity conservationists have blamed these environmental problems on population growth and swidden, or shifting, cultivators , more pejoratively described as slash-and-burn farmers. By definition, swidden agriculturalists use long fallowing periods, shift fields over a large area, and rely on fire to control weeds and provide nutrients for the soil. To an outsider, burned milpas may appear unsightly and disorderly (Dowie 2009: 136), but the practice helps farmers avoid the use of poisonous herbicides and petrochemical fertilizers. Despite these environmental advantages, conservationists and government land managers still perceive extensive agriculture as a threat to protected areas and criticize Q’eqchi’ agriculture as “anarchic,” “nomadic,” “wandering,” or “economically backwards . . . like Cuban communists !” Some have even argued that the Q’eqchi’ are an impervious cultural 84 Commons, Customs, and Carrying Capacities group with “impoverished” and “inappropriate” environmental cognition (Atran et al. 2002: 437). Over the past decade, they have spent millions of dollars , to little avail, trying to convince Q’eqchi’ swidden farmers to convert to sedentary agriculture and diversify their crops. Having worked with conservation organizations in Petén for more than a decade, I also used to worry about Q’eqchi’ swidden agriculture and population growth as an environmental problem. Through conducting comparative anthropological research in Guatemala and Belize and by reading critical analyses about the founder of demography, Thomas Malthus (Ross 2000; Lohmann Figure 3.1. Map of Petén deforestation in relation to the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Source: Jason Arnold and Daniel Irwin, NASA/SERVIR 2010 Commons, Customs, and Carrying Capacities 85 2003), however, I came to realize that Petén’s environmental problems were a result not simply of population increase in swidden cultivators but also the displacement of Q’eqchi’ farmers by private property. The tensions between property and population may be better understood by returning to the ideological source of the confusion: the writings of Thomas Malthus and one of his most influential followers, Garrett Hardin. Because environmentalists guided by these thinkers have so maligned Q’eqchi’ relationships with the environment, this chapter examines the many socio-ecological advantages of Q’eqchi’ customary land management over private landholdings in the karstic soils of the northern Maya Guatemala lowlands. Where customary management has been lost among Q’eqchi’ people in Guatemala, the private property system fosters environmental degradation, which is further compounded by population growth. While there are certainly environmental consequences to Petén’s exponential demographic explosion, agrarian inequity and the destruction of indigenous commons have thus far been equally, if not more, responsible for the diminished carrying capacity of the lowlands. Specters of Malthus Writing at the height of the English enclosures, Thomas Malthus concluded in his 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population: “The power of population is indefFigure 3.2. Population of Petén, 1714–1998. Sources: Schwartz 1990; Grandia 2000; Corzo 2003; SEGEPLAN 1993 Year Population 1714 3,027 1778 2,555 1839 6,327 1845 5,203 1858 6,407 1869 8,817 1879 6,547 1880 8,374 1893 6,075 1904 10,000 1921 7,583 1936 9,728 1940 10,566 1950 15,897 1960 21,330 1964 25,207 1973 64,126 1978 12,774 1981 186,488 1987 200,861 1990 311,314 1998 513,310 86 Commons, Customs, and Carrying Capacities initely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population , when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. . . . This implies...