Forest Ecology: A Journey of Many Species and Issues

The week of September 20th was Forest Ecology. We may have started in the Nabitunich classroom, but class brought us to the depths of Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (Named after the rooster-like crest in the mountainous horizon). Day and night hikes, birding, field notes, generator-powered classes, independent projects, and even swimming under pristine waterfalls were all in a days work at Cockscomb. It was a very big week for students, and certainly had its share of challenges to dish out. Ranging from a deep sense of awe to the utter annoyances of gnats and mosquitoes, we leave Cockscomb with a deeper understanding of the realities of tropical forests.

Led by our fearless leader Dr. Randy Van Dragt, we strolled the trails of Cockscomb absorbing everything we could along the way.

Awaiting at the end of the trail were the Tiger Fern waterfalls.

Our class learned the history of Cockscomb through Mr. and Mrs. Saqui, leaders in the Maya Center community just outside of Cockscomb. Mr. Ernesto Saqui was the first director of the sanctuary in the mid '80s. The development of Cockscomb contained many conflicts between the conservation of nature and the displacement of a local Mayan community. Jaguars versus people? Something just wasn’t right. Yet through creativity, difficult meetings, and much will power, a balance in job opportunity, control, and access now exists between Maya Center and Cockscomb Basin. However, this balance is still requires fine tuning today. It is here within this history and in this land we had the amazing chance to study with Dr. Randy Van Dragt from Calvin College, MI who has spent quite a bit of time teaching in the forests of Belize and Costa Rica.

Jaguars being solitary hunters, this rare moment captured an entire family!

Randy took us on a journey through the rainforest. Well, is it a rainforest, or a jungle? What’s the difference? Cockscomb contains elements of both. A jungle being the classic movie scene of machete slicing through the thicket, a secondary forest with a history of disturbance and therefore an abundance of rebounding growth. Yet the rainforest, tropical broadleaf lowland forest, contains layers upon layers of canopy and little light left at the bottom under story. From the details of learning the plant families (Araceae, Aracaceae, Bromiliaceae, Heliconiaceae…) to contemplating our place in the forest, our journey through Cockscomb stretched us into new heights. Every morning gave us the opportunity for birding, a total of 60 species during our time there. Hummingbirds and manikins were exceptionally active at this time of year, allowing us to glimpse a variety of stunning courtship dances and displays in forest clearing and along misty river banks.

The Red-rumped Tarantula (Frightening yet harmless when space is respected) is one of many species especially abundant in the refuge of Cockscomb.

After Cockscomb there was still more to discover for our class. Randy took us up to Mt. Pine Ridge to behold the controversial Chalillo dam. This dam serves as a reservoir for two other dams down stream on the Macal River, all producing hydro-power for Belize. As the dam was built on a seasonal flood plain (Ideal for a dam that creates a large reservoir), the floodplain also served as a rare refuge for the beautiful and in Central America, endangered Scarlet Macaw. The flooded reservoir of the dam is also some of the last key nesting grounds in Belize. From the Belize Ministry of Forestry, we learned the history of forestry in Belize and heard about their current challenges and aspirations. As the human imprint in the area takes its toll, we also saw the efforts being made to sustain wildlife. Can Macaws coexist with the dam? The timing of our visits to these places showed us the critical times in which we live and how critical it is to understand both the needs of human beings and that of nature to sustain themselves.

Atop the dam with the reservoir at our backs.

On the way home from Mountain Pine Ridge, we stopped at the behemoth Rio Frio cave.

Sustainable Community Development, Pt. 1

This week CCSP took on the world of development. Development history, theory, and practice were all considered, often up close and personal. So why Development? Well, there’s a long history of colonialism to consider. A history of subsistence farmers turning to wage labor. Land acquiring, resource extraction, slave trades, displaced people groups, and disease exposure all form the roots of the need for what we today call development. So where do we go from here? What is “progress”? We have modernization, globalization, market based economies, cultures, histories, reciprocal relationships and the environment all swirling around in this soup of a society! Our class times took the “Barbier Trade-off” model into consideration to balance the biological, economic, and social systems. Whats more, we must balance the qualitative and quantitative dimensions. With an adaptive trade-off process that continually changes with the systems mentioned, our goals encompass a well-rounded development strategy. Yet the struggle remains: How does development become sustainable? Dr. Sara Alexander from Baylor University, TX, was able to tap into her previous research in Belize as a model of development for our class. She takes her interest of natural resource management into the world of social anthropology.

We explored tourism in depth on a wide spectrum. From “eco” to cruise ship style. What’s the difference? We considered questions such as: Who profits, who gets educated, how is culture portrayed, how are locals empowered, and what is the expense on the environment? We saw how an eco-lodge in Belize called Black Rock powers their facilities on rigged-up hydropower systems from the river. They even filter their own wastewater with gardens and pools on site, then use the nutrients for fruit plants that supplement the lodge’s dining menu! Such strategies allow guests to minimize their ecological impact and learn about the sustainable ways in which we can travel; working along side the ecosystem instead of against it. Although not perfected, lodges that claim to be “eco-tourism” or “responsible tourism” (Both foreign and locally owned) strive to employ local Belizeans and empower education and upward job mobility simultaneously. While the idea is great, eco-tourism’s dilemma is often that its business is usually with low spending guests in rrelatively low numbers.

In contrast, we also visited the Belize cruise ship terminal. Here 800,000 tourists are estimated to travel through each year. A hot spot of commerce, the terminal had four diamond sellers, a pharmacy, and a plethora of gifts. Although the numbers are high, the duration of each stay is only a few hours, much less than overnight guests. High numbers of guests also means a high concentration of food and waste, as well as a high fuel cost for quick tours around the country. How will the environment cope?

Another excursion we took was to the Community Baboon Sanctuary in Bermudan Landing. Here a community effort is at work conserving, educating, and empowering. Privately owned properties have agreed to leave a portion of land forested. When 50m are left in one yard adjacent to another 50m in the next yard, we have 100m of forest! This infrastructure allows enough forest habitat for several troops of Black Howler Monkeys, or “Baboons” in their Creole name. When there comes a break in the forest, “Monkey bars” are tied between the patches to allow movement for the Howlers! Tourists, groups and researchers utilize the trails that weave through the community. Surely the Sanctuary contains the biological, economic, and social systems from the “Barbier Trade-off”. After part one of Sustainable Community Development, we’re full of yet more questions having just scratched the surface, but at least we’re one step closer to comprehending “sustainable”.

The waste management system at Black Rock. This waterfall aerates water coming from the septic tank and wetland and puts it into a pool with more filtering plants.


Up close and personal with Howler Monkeys!
"What? Termites are edible? They taste like carrots??"


The "town hall meeting" gathered everyone from different walks of life. From ranchers, loggers, bankers, teachers, locals, environmentalists, botanists, archeologists, and even activists, this role play came to life on Thursday night. With background research about our characters, we had plenty to dispute and dialogue concerning the issues surrounding development in Belize. To build the road and develop industry and agro-forestry? To support archeology? Conservation and species richness?? How to decide?!

Becoming the Neighbor

Did you know that San Ignacio (Belize’s 2nd largest “city” that we are only 7 miles from) is translated into Saint Ignatius, who was a saint that believed that Christ's death and resurrection paved the way for his (Ignatius) being martyred. Ignatius was a man who essentially held to much of the New Testament writings and teachings, and also taught about the virgin birth of Jesus. Saint Ignatius was believed to have been martyred in about C.E. 107, and was born about C.E. 50. He was believed to have known some of the apostles. He’s also thought to have succeeded Peter as the Bishop of Antioch, Syria. Scholars refer to Ignatius as the "God-Bearer" or Theophorus.

This exciting fun fact about the place we live and how it relates to Theology was told to us by our wonderful Professor, Michael Lodahl, who joined us from Point Loma Nazarene University to teach the first week of class, God and Nature I.Almost every class this week was started with a prayer from the book of Psalms and ended with a Bible ABC’s (written by the talented Michael Lodahl himself)with a whole lot of scripture reading, deep discussions, and new, exciting ideas in between.

G is for Goliath, who turned Israel’s face red.
Til David confirmed he had rocks in his head!

J is for Jonah, stiff-necked missionary.
God had to whale him ‘fore bias he’d bury.

M is for Moses, the one called lawgiver.
His distaste for idols made Aaron’s knees quiver.

Y is the question that Job asked of God.
He thought all his siff’ring was a little bit odd.

One of the many profound topics we discussed was the idea of becoming the neighbor. We discovered that Leviticus 19 is the only place in the Hebrew bible that we are told to not only “love your neighbors as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), but also to “love your strangers as yourself”! (Leviticus 19:33). This biblical vision we learned about in Leviticus is teaching us to love all of God’s creation; neighbors and stranger, animals and plants. We then looked at the Gospel of Luke, which brings the two greatest commands from the Hebrew Bible together and says, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' (also found in Duet. 6:5); and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself."(Luke 10:27) . In the New Testament we are clearly being called to become the neighbor, by drawing near to others and being active in our faith. But once again we are reminded in Psalm 145:9(“The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made”) that we cannot draw the line at becoming neighbors to only humans, our responsibility as ‘image bearers’ (Our calling and vocation introduced to us in Genesis 1) is to become neighbors to all of God’s creation. This does not mean to simply “celebrate the beauty”, but rather to love it, tend to it, and serve it because we are in an everlasting covenant with God and with all living creatures!

Before God and Nature I, we got to know some of our Belizean neighbors during a trip to the Belize Zoo! The photos throughout this entry are from that experience, which was a lot of fun and a great way to get to know Belize a little more.This is just a glimpse of some of the in depth scripture studies and the discussions based around the book by Ellen Davis “Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture- An agrarian reading of the Bible” which was the focus book of the week. Only the first week of class and we are already diving into deep topics of theology and creation care!

Orientation to the Cultures of Belize!

A vital part of orientation week is an introduction to the surrounding Belizean cultures. At CCSP, we dig into the past and the present all in a day's work. Overlooking San Ignacio is Cahal Pech, an ancient Mayan ruin site complete with a museum that allowed us to glimpse the ancient Maya world. We observed how the ancient design of the Mayan cities were symbolic with Maya worldviews. The Maya levels of heaven (13) and hell (9) were represented with precision on their buildings and temples, indicated by the number of entrances along with their proximity to the sun and stars. What would it look like if our cities today included such planning and precision?

Standing in the ruin of the Pok-a-Tok ball court, we imagined this game being played around us on this very ground before the first Olympic torch was even lit. Was it the winners or the losers of this game that were sacrificed to the Mayan gods? The world of Anthropology is still discussing this and much more on these ancient civilizations. Steps and passages up and down showed us what was once truly a great and powerful civilization of politics, religion, business, and everyday life.

Mestizo is a culture of mixed Spanish and Maya ancestry. Today, Mestizo culture is alive and well in the Benque House of Culture just down the road from CCSP campus. To transition us from the ancient world to today, CCSP held it’s first Mestizo marimba dance.

Some of Benque’s most renowned dancers showed us how to move along with the marimba, especially noting the bass line (Pun intended). We even managed to squeeze in some community bonding as a result of a new and shared experience! Once dance is involved, who could ever look at the Marimba the same again? And whats more, orientation week included visits to the Blue Morpho butterfly house, and the Belize Botanical Gardens. How real the world gets when seen up close. Life, fellowship, and service projects in the garden... establishing and reestablishing the links between people and the Creation.
Potting up young'n seedlings for the nursery

Tidying up the Nursery
Unveiling new plant species labels
Crafting butterfly species labelsComposing anew in the orchid house