Climate Resilience & Sustainable Maya Economies

The health, integrity and customary tenure of Maya ancestral lands are better legally secured and protected, while supporting livelihood security for all.

From JCS strategic programme area 3: Land security, living territories and mutual livelihood security

Caring for the land is caring for the community

For the Maya people, the well-being of the people depends on the land, and the well-being of the land depends on its people. Protecting and stewarding the land, forests and rivers reflects the well-being of the community, the individual and those coming after us.

That care is visible in the villages. Maya women of San Lucas and Corazon have received copal seedlings to begin regenerating their copal groves, and San Lucas village is now connected to a potable water system, a step toward a more climate-resilient community.

Through environmental stewardship work and the Greening Belize Initiative partnership, the aim is forests, rivers and livelihoods that keep sustaining Maya communities, while community films share the stories of cacao farming and of how climate change is affecting Maya villages.

How Maya communities lead on climate

Four ways Maya knowledge and stewardship are helping build a more climate-resilient Belize.

01
Climate leadership

Maya peoples are active architects of Belize’s climate resilience, not passive beneficiaries.

Maya women of San Lucas and Corazon are regenerating their copal groves after forest fires, and San Lucas village is now connected to a potable water system.
02
Ancient knowledge, modern solutions

Traditional Ecological Knowledge is practical, living science that Belize needs now.

Knowledge of forests, rivers, farmland and seasons, held by Q’eqchi’ and Mopan communities and passed between generations, is a foundation for adapting to a changing climate.
03
Guardians of the ecological backbone

Maya stewardship helps sustain the Maya Mountains, rainforests and watersheds that all of Belize depends on.

The 2015 Consent Order of the Caribbean Court of Justice affirmed Maya rights to their lands and resources. Secure land rights and strong stewardship go hand in hand.
04
Communities sustaining the future

Maya women, youth and governance institutions are building the sustainable economy of tomorrow.

From women-led copal regeneration and cacao farming to youth leadership and decisions made together at the Ab’ink, the village meeting.

Listen to Maya voices. Learn from Maya knowledge. Protect Belize together.

In development

A Maya-led climate-resilience initiative

Building on this work, JCS and its partners are preparing a Maya-led climate-resilience initiative. It is in development and is being developed toward a funding proposal to the Green Climate Fund. It has not been approved for Green Climate Fund financing; we will share its progress here as each stage is confirmed.

Climate resilience and Maya economies

Villages regenerating copal

San Lucas and Corazon

New potable water system

San Lucas village

How we count: we only publish a figure after JCS and the Maya institutions have confirmed it.