By Lia Ivanick of the University of Vermont
It had been a couple days since we returned to Golden Stream after 20 days in the field, and I had been beginning to feel a bit like a sloth with all these hot days doing little else but taking classes and trying not to take too many naps. So, finding out that Tino was coming to take us out to the jaguar friendly farm and let us mingle a bit more with the surrounding community came as a very welcome surprise!
Tino was one of the Ya’axche staff members who had previously given us a presentation on their camera trap surveys. This time around, he was giving us an overview of Ya’axche’s involvement with farmers mitigating jaguar predation upon their livestock, and how the program has evolved over the years from education and outreach campaigns to directly coming up with mitigation measures alongside farmers. He talked to us extensively about the mitigation measures, which included sound alarms, solar lights, secure fencing, night enclosures, electric fences, and even donkeys as deterrents! Notably, he focused on the foxlight, a light that turns on at night and mimics a hunter or a farmer, and has apparently averted all losses of livestock with its use, which is kind of insane to think about! We were then given a rundown on the Camera Trap Monitoring Effort Ya’axche is carrying out at 7 different farms from 5 communities to monitor jaguars in these areas, with the goal of continuing to assist farmers in implementing mitigation measures against jaguars and responding to conflicts.
After the presentation we were driven over to a farm ten minutes down the road, which was maybe one of my personal highlights of day. Just being able to get out of basecamp and feel some wind on your face as you pass by the surrounding communities – especially if you’re lucky enough to sit next to one of the open windows – is honestly always such a treat. One of the other happy surprises was that we were escorted by Nathaniel, one of the staff that we had met in our first weeks in Belize, and who we had not seen since going into the field. He had the same idea as I did and brought his fancy camera, very keen on taking pictures of our little excursion.
When we got there, we were greeted by a couple buildings that made up the beginning of the farm, framed by a gorgeous open view of the mountains behind it and the open road with clear blue skies soaring high above in front of it.
As we got to walk closer, we were able to uncover multiple turkeys being penned there, a couple of them roaming free. Turkeys were not the only animals we discovered either.
We started on the tour down the path, bringing us straight to a pasture enclosed by barbed wire fencing that, even more excitingly, held cows and sheep!
This is where Tino gave us the brunt of the overview of the farm. The farmer himself, Pablo Salam, was not there to give us the tour, so Tino explained how he had received recognition for this demonstration plot where the planting of Inga trees was piloted.
Ingas are a genus of trees that we had seen a lot of on our vegetation transect days in the Maya Mountain North Concession, with hairy leaves and bark and an apparent great capacity to perform nitrogen fixation for soil. The Ingas here were planted in rows so that vegetables could be planted underneath them, in the nutrient-rich soil. Pablo Salam had also worked with Ya’axche to implement solar lights and improved, secure fencing, for which he was given a sign in recognition.
We walked through more sections of crops, ducking under a barbed wire fence here and there and walking by more open pastures with the occasional sheep or cow, able to enjoy just being outside under a gorgeously open sky with a great view of the lands of the farm in all directions. The open sky meant the heat was, of course, extremely intense, but that kind of heat is much easier to bear when you’re exploring a new place on a beautiful day. We were also able to walk through some more shaded, muddy parts of a trail leading to a beautiful river that Nathaniel had apparently done his thesis on and, according to him, held extremely clean drinking water. We got to sit there for a bit and listen to Nathanial talk about some of the other rivers in the area and farmers’ relationships to them, and it was nice to just sit there in the shade and listen to him talk while enjoying the calm of the running water.
We got to see one of the all-powerful foxlights and were also taken to the section near one of the camera traps, on the border between standing forest and the fenced-in farm.
Tino explained that the farmer had left this standing forest here because he was still interested in preserving that area for conservation. This was pretty cool to hear, because the push and pull between conservation and the need for people to make their own livelihoods has really interested me over the past couple years, and is honestly an issue I have a lot of trouble grappling with. Preserving wildlife is so important not just for research and for the welfare of all organisms involved, but also for the health of our global ecosystems that do so much to support life on this planet. And yet, how can you reconcile that with restricting the very members of a community who live around the area and depend on the land for resources and livelihoods? Can you blame farmers for shooting bothersome jaguars when implementing mitigation measures or getting the jaguars translocated might take more resources and time that are not easy to come by? It’s a lot easier to say land and nature should be reserved when you don’t have to directly work said land for your way of life.
This was the main reason why the jaguar-friendly farm was such a cool visit for me. To me, we got to see the best part of what Ya’axche does. Their jaguar program seems to do exactly what their mission statement says – help humans and nature live in harmony amongst each other. The jaguar mitigation measure, as well as their efforts in putting forth an education campaign, really show to me the care in trying to create non-invasive tactics to live peacefully alongside jaguars, minimizing conflict and having a mix of altered land that may be used for farmers’ livelihoods while promoting keeping some areas preserved in the mix. Even more, it shows how much Ya’axche really cares about changing minds and behavior from the ground-up, focusing on fostering relationships and networks with the farmers rather than just advocating for blanket rules and restrictions. That is the kind of conservation work I aspire to be doing, and the kind of thing that makes me proud to be here with all the other students, doing our small part to help humans and nature continue to live in harmony and build a more sustainable future.
Also coming soon:
A comprehensive review of the tang powder flavors found in the Toledo District of Belize,
Central America