Menu
The others in our hiking group were wholly oblivious to what we were talking about and simply enjoyed the sunrise. I reflected on the Lake and the surrounding communities supported by it since the days of the Ancient Mayans. It is both beautiful to behold and rich in history and culture.
The surrounding area has been transformed by social upheaval, agriculture, population growth, and consequently alarming levels of pollution. Today, Lake Atitlán sustains 15 towns and villages and over 350,000 people. Untreated sewage, litter, and agricultural runoff produce toxic algae blooms that frequently cause horrendous public health problems in the surrounding communities. The lake was officially declared “Threatened Lake of the Year” by the Global Nature Fund (GNF) in 2009.
Many programs and initiatives in the last decade have contributed to the fight to save the lake, many resulting in significant, positive strides to reduce the waste and pollution contaminating this treasured area. However, the fight is far from over. The push to save the lake continues. In addition to the added stress of climate change, advocates must also consider the deep-rooted social-political issues in Guatemala to find lasting solutions.
“In Guatemala, and particularly in the Sololá region, at Lake Atitlán, 74% of the people live in extreme poverty. Until now, the issue of environmental protection has only played a minor part as the expansion of the healthcare system as well as the construction of routes and schools have higher priority and therefore privileged access to funding” (GNF 2009).
Because of the government’s racial war against the indigenous Mayan populations that ended in 1996, the many recent protests and movements to try and save Lake Atitlán from becoming irreversibly polluted are brushed aside. Local indigenous people living around the lake–mainly the Quiche, Kaqchikel and Tz’utujil Mayans–have generations of stories tied to the lake, as well as their use of its water for everyday amenities. The people not only endure social injustice by their government, but now suffer from the environmental erosion of the lake. To reach an environmental solution for a lake in a country where there is lack of structure and an abundance of corruption, there needs to be an ethnographic lens of how to maneuver the social issues at hand. And this has both local and national consequences for Guatemala, as well as enormous consequences for the Americas.
The civil war is a key element to understanding how things work socially in Guatemala, and how it unravels our social, environmental, and economic well-being. Calling it a war suggests the indigenous people were prepared to fight back, but that was unfortunately not the case. There are the “guerillas” who are mostly made up of indigenous people who formed together to fight against the government but for the most part, it was, in fact, a genocide. To this day, there are people completely denying the genocide ever happened. According to an article written by Rebecca Bodenheiber:
“The Guatemalan civil war was the bloodiest Cold War conflict in Latin America. Over 200,000 were killed… UN Truth Commission found that 83% of casualties were indigenous Maya, and 93% of human rights violations were perpetuated by state military or paramilitary forces” (Guatemalan Civil War 2020).
Starting in 1960 and ending in 1996, a significant time where people are still living to this day having family members missing, there is tension and racism continuing despite the signed peace treaty. That said, any movements to environmentally change the pollution to Lake Atitlán would be difficult because changing for the better would mean benefitting a significant amount of indigenous people residing around the lake. If this lake were to become irreversibly polluted, then many indigenous people would be forced to relocate for their own health and safety.
During the progression of the war, the economy of Guatemala changed as well. Guatemala is known for its exports of coffee beans, clothing textiles, bananas, and precious metals. Coffee farming around Lake Atitlán was forced upon the indigenous people living there due to a lack of fish as well as enabling the government to better control them. Around Lake Atitlán, fish used to be abundant and farmers would come home with barrels of fish every day. In an interview from an article written by Jeff Abbott, he interviews Francisco Quiacaín, a Tzutuj’il Maya and member of the Community Committee for Development of San Pedro La Laguna. “According to our grandparents, in the 1940s or 1950s, it was a lake that was incredibly clean; the lake was a place where you could drink the water straight from the lake, and not have any problem” (Environmental Racism in Guatemala 2016).
If you were to ever read an excerpt of a coffee bag offered from Guatemala at a local grocery store, it describes something to the extent of “this coffee was specially curated by the families of indigenous people for generations,” romanticizing the idea behind how the coffee was grown. In reality? The families do not reap the financial benefits at all. Intermediaries who buy the coffee beans from the farmers for very cheap, sell them to countries like the United States and Europe for much more which causes the farmers to survive despite unfair and unstable prices. This is the case for many countries in Central and South America with products like bananas in Honduras (The Dark History of Bananas 2020).
Farming around Lake Atitlan is necessary, but heavily unregulated with pesticides. Everything happening around the lake does eventually trickle back down with the rains and damages the lake chemistry. There is not much incentive for farmers who are already struggling financially to switch to organic coffee farming because it is more expensive and labor intensive. Creating an incentive to go organic for the local indigenous people in coffee farming would help save the lake from any more pesticides getting into the water.
Solutions for saving Lake Atitlan have already been introduced to the United Nations as a health crisis. Time is of the essence. As the years progress, the more polluted the lake will get. Unfortunately, some of the solutions that have been presented can potentially create bigger problems. For example, one solution is to have a water treatment plant filter sewage out of the lake into a different location to be treated. Movements to do so are already in action. However, this could potentially be a death sentence for the lake. When filtering water out of the lake, there could be a danger of it being continuously drained just like lakes in the United States, such as Lake Tahoe. Broader solutions that also consider the livelihoods of the people living around it for generations are in order.
Other small-scale initiatives are already in action with NGOs to provide better drinking water for indigenous communities who live in and around Lake Atitlán. Some examples of these projects in action are WASH Rotary Action Group (Saving Lake Atitlán), Agua Del Pueblo (AdP), and many other NGOs, as well as members of the indigenous communities, are taking action to reduce pollution and provide healthy living around the lake. Small-scale community efforts like these are a positive step, but not enough to save the lake. However, supporting efforts and ideas on the community level will help derive better solutions for the lake.
Community is important for survival because it is what makes us human, to rely on each other socially and economically. It gives purpose and accountability. Lake Atitlán has many valuable and cherished communities that have persevered in a war that could have wiped out their entire population, and now are facing environmental dangers. To make a lasting impact for these communities living around the lake, efforts from the indigenous communities, as well as scientific and governmental mindsets must join together to figure out a solution that benefits all parties. Unfortunately, the people now in power have not made or encouraged that effort.
Lake Atitlan is only one example of many environmental issues around the world that require consideration of both social and biological issues together. Without considering the social issues such as the recent war, there is no way of moving forward in change for the better due to differences in opinions, culture, economy, and racism. Unfortunately, these indigenous people do not have a loud voice because there is countless evidence that their own government is working against them. Handling issues around Lake Atitlán is nuanced because it is a rare example of people still living traditionally as they have many years ago. Therefore, bigger efforts to save the lake should be heavily discussed and revised to prevent changing the social construct.
Why would we want to preserve a rare and traditional living style nowadays? It is what gives the lake and country the charm that drives people to visit and appreciate it every year. And as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said, climate change is a code red for humanity, and if we were ever to figure out a solution, we have to make nuanced and more collaborative decisions—such is the case for Lake Atitlán. To handle these issues, government, communities, and businesses together need to listen to the people of the land and create those decisions that consider all that is involved, whether people or the ecosystems.
Guatemala is only one example of the lack of consideration for indigenous people. To the Guatemalan government, indigenous people do not matter, and this is the case in many other countries. We must come together like a larger and more dynamic community to consider the people that are already there. Otherwise, this world will lose its charm, its resources, and its many opportunities altogether, leaving little left to enjoy.
There is neither a law of physics nor economics that prevents us from quadrupling the productive use of energy and other resources. Rather, it is much more an issue of imagination and our political will to get it done.
– John A. “Skip” Laitner