By Marco Lopez
Felipe Sho is preparing to plant one hundred cacao trees. He declares this with a smile, even as he continues to clean his 30-acre farm destroyed by the recent wildfires. Big Falls, his home village, is one of the many communities impacted by the extended drought and subsequent wildfires that engulfed the Toledo District in Belize for weeks.
“It is really sad, to be honest with you. Knowing that I have invested a lot of time in my apiary, in my field on a whole, because I plant fruit trees as well, knowing that they have been totally damaged is really sad, it is hard to explain. The entire 30 acres that I have is completely gone,” Sho lamented.
The losses are devastating, but even in the tragedy, miracles occurred. The bee hives provided to Sho through the support of Ya’axche Conservation Trust somehow remained intact. Unburned by the fires that consumed everything else around them.
“There is nothing left, but luckily, I think it is by the grace of God, my three hives of bees still remain, that is all I am grateful for,” Sho said.
Resilience is perhaps the best word to capture the essence of the farmers and beekeepers supported by Ya’axche. The 144 farming families who live in the villages of the Maya Golden Landscape in the Toledo District endured unthinkable losses because of the recent wildfires.
A team from the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) took the 112-mile journey from the capital city, Belmopan to Ya’axche’s Golden Stream Field Station to see the impact firsthand. Ya’axche supports 10 farming communities – beekeeping is one of the climate-smart practices they promote within these villages.
A meeting with 12 beekeepers and officers from Ya’axche to chart a path forward gave beekeepers and farmers the opportunity to suggest innovative solutions to remedy the short-term fallout.
Estevan Assi Jr. is the Community and Outreach Director at Ya’axche. He shared that over 2000 acres of forest cover in the area is estimated to have been lost due to the fires. Crops, apiaries, homes, and in many instances, lifetimes of work went up in smoke.
“Within the last month we have seen significant loss of forest cover, I’d say over 2000 acres, we also have loss of our farmlands and some homes. The impacts were so vast this year because we had a long drought and then in terms of fuel load, there is a lot of fuel load on the ground,” Assi explained.
He attributes the intensity of the uncontrolled fires to the changing climatic conditions being seen globally.
“The increase in temperatures this year was very significant; we do see effects of climate change within our area, within our region, and definitely, this has contributed to the extensiveness of the fires for this year,” Assi Jr. pointed out.
The fires, which were accompanied by endless plumes of smoke, also proved fatal for the bees.
Youth beekeeper, Jaconiah Cal, from San Jose Village, Toledo explains.
“Because of the smoke, they can’t go to work, their bodies are not strong enough to go to work in the smoke.”
Due to this, many bees end up dying in the hives, Miriam Tuel, a beekeeper from Indian Creek Village points out. She explained that this impacted the yield of the honey harvest significantly this year.
“This year the fire has affected them; we didn’t harvest good. It was time to harvest, but nothing,” Tuel said. “The fires have affected them, because of the smoke, too much smoke. Some of them die in the box because of too much smoke, they can’t find food,” she pointed out.
Bees play a critical role in helping to provide food security across the world. They are considered tiny climate justice champions because of their unique characteristics. They are nature’s pollinators, and often, where bees are, food crops flourish. This has been observed as critical for the farmers from southern Belize.
“They are very good pollinators, being that the crops that we produce we can see a yield, very good production, and without these bees I believe the quality of our corn or the beans that we produce might be very limited but with these animals we can see that production is increasing,” Sho pointed out.
The continued work of Ya’axche to support beekeepers and farmers in southern Belize is key to that organization’s vision to promote harmony with nature through sustainable practices.
Ya’axche’s support for beekeepers and farmers has been continual. Ending in 2016, a project spearheaded by the CCCCC with support from UK-DFID (now FCDO) and the Government of Belize saw farmers and beekeepers from the Maya Golden Landscape benefit from donations of cacao seedlings, technical assistance, and training and capacity building for beekeepers.
With continued support, Ya’axche has been able to build on the work it started with these farming families.
Get in contact with Ya’axche Conservation Trust by visiting their website at https://yaaxche.org/contact-us/ .
