Introduction Prosperity across Centuries; Chapter 1 The Context of the Maya Forest; Chapter 2 Dwelling in the Maya Forest: The High-Performance Milpa; Chapter 3 Environmental Change and the Historical Ecology of the Maya Forest; Chapter 4 Maya Land Use, the Milpa, and Population in the Late Classic Period; Chapter 5 The Forested Landscape of the Maya; Chapter 6 Maya Restoration Agriculture as Conservation for the Twenty-first Century;
Anabel Ford is director of the MesoAmerican Research Center at
the University of California, Santa Barbara, and President of the
nonprofit organization Exploring Solutions Past: The Maya Forest
Alliance. She has done extensive research on patterns of Maya
settlement and landscape ecology, and is recognized for the
archaeological discovery of the ancient Maya city center of El
Pilar, on the border of Belize and Guatemala.,
Ronald Nigh is a professor at Centro Investigaciones y Estudios
Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Chiapas, Mexico. He
is the author of numerous studies and articles on agricultural,
ecological, and environmental issues of concern to indigenous
peoples in Mesoamerica. He is also director of Dana, a
non-government organization that coordinates an experimental garden
in San Cristobal de Las Casas for training and support of young
Maya farmers involved in agroecological transition.
"The Maya Forest Garden is an excellent addition to the New
Frontiers in Historical Ecology series. Ford and Nigh’s book
presents readers a thorough, accessible, and holistic
anthropological introduction to the nature of Maya agricultural
practices, a review of past and present ecological and conservation
conditions, and a convincing theory for adopting an
interdisciplinary approach to studying this unique relationship
between a people and its environment. This work should be of
interest to Maya scholars; students in the fields of cultural
ecology, sustainability, and archaeology; and others interested in
the dynamics of sustainable ecological practices of complex
societies." - Jeffrey L. Brewer, University of Cincinnati, USA, in
American Anthropologist"Ford and Nigh bring decades of field
research to this book and draw on ethnography, agroecology, ethno-
and paleobotany, archaeology, historical climate data, and
ethnohistory. Even today, Maya forest gardeners cultivate
sustainably but are threatened by Euro-informed models of
agriculture that view tropical lowlands as suitable mainly for
destructive pasturing. Scholars interested in tropical swiddeners
and Mesoamericans in particular should read this discussion.
Summing Up: Highly recommended."- A. E. Adams, Central Connecticut
State University, CHOICE"The book is a timely multidisciplinary
exploration of not only the rich historical ecology of the Maya
forest garden, but also of Maya culture, history and knowledge –
and the risk of loosing all of it. The value of explorations like
the one offered by this study need to be — for the future of any
form of sustainable humanity and in my modest opinion —
continued."- Alessandro Questa, Anthropology Book Forun (American
Anthropological Association)"An excellent contribution to the world
literature on sustainable, indigenous land management. After
rigorous paleo-botanical, archaeological and ecological research
and on the ground consultation with existing practitioners, the
authors conclude that the widely assumed cause of the collapse of
the Mayan civilization due to deforestation and environmental
degradation is not true... I’d recommend Ford and Nigh’s book to
anyone interested in permaculture and forest gardens."- Michael
Pilarski, Friends Of The Trees Society"A groundbreaking new book
co-authored by a UC Santa Barbara researcher... asserts the Maya
not only survived their presumed apocalypse, they thrive today
using farming techniques that are thousands of years old. The Maya
Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustainable Cultivation of the
Tropical Woodlands by UCSB’s Anabel Ford and Ronald Nigh
demonstrates that the Maya milpa system is sustainable,
sophisticated and highly productive."- Jim Logan, The UCSB
Current"Ford’s book, The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of
Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands, co-authored with
Ronald Nigh, a professor at the Centro Investigaciones y Estudios
Superiores en Antropología Social in Chiapas, Mexico, published in
June, is the result of 44 years of excavation and research into El
Pilar’s domestic architecture, gardens and traditional forest
crops."- Joan Koerper, Inlandia Literary Journeys"We have been
reading The Maya Forest Garden by Anabel Ford and Ronald Nigh. It
tells the tale of a civilization that weathered many climate
changes, foreign conquests and failed attempts at cultural
genocide. That civilization is still there today, after 8,000
years."- Albert Bates, Resilience "For years, archaeologist Anabel
Ford has been arguing the case that the ancient Maya knew well how
to manage their tropical forest environment to their advantage,
eventually sustaining large populations even beyond the time when
many archaeologists suggest the Maya declined and abandoned their
iconic Classic period pyramidal and temple constructions and
monumental inscriptions during the 8th and 9th centuries CE. She
challenges the popular theories long held by many scholars that the
Maya declined because of overpopulation and deforestation from
increased agricultural production, perhaps aggravated by draught
and climate change."- Popular Archaeology"In 2001, I traveled to
the Belize-Guatemala border to report on UCSB archaeologist Anabel
Ford’s many discoveries at El Pilar, the Maya monument complex she
uncovered in 1983. That’s where she developed revolutionary
theories that threatened to rock the academic world, namely that
the Maya did not “disappear” due to an overpopulation cataclysm,
but merely dwindled with time."- Matt Kettmann, Santa Barbara
Independent "The book makes use of a wide range of data sources,
including texts, ethnographic and archaeological research, pollen
cores and a variety of climate proxies. The first two chapters
after the introduction provide a useful summary of the archaeology,
history and historical ecology of the Maya region. These sections
are clearly written and well illustrated, and will mean that the
book is accessible to those not familiar with recent research in
Mesoamerica."- Antiquity 92 361 (2018): 267–274"the book fulfills a
longstanding need to reevaluate the ecological relationship of the
Maya people and the forest which they have managed and maintained
over millennia. The book will be of interest to archaeologists and
anthropologists, as well as conservation biologists,
paleoclimatologists, and those concerned with development
strategies in the tropics."
- Scott L. Fedick, University of California, Riverside, USA, in
Latin American Antiquity
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