The Future of Petén

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FLORES, Guatemala — Today we interviewed Juan Trujillo of Rainforest Alliance, current acting mayor of Carmelita, former president of the Carmelita forest concession. Trujillo describes himself as a skeptic-turned-believer in the concessions concept over the 11-year evolution of Carmelita’s concession. The concession, with its assembly, committees and elected leaders, is a much a [...]

Today head archaeologist Richard Hansen continued our tour of monumental architecture, while discussing his plans for the development of ecotourism at El Mirador. Hansen is convinced that the only way to stop deforestation is to create a legally protected 810,000-acre no-cut area around the archaeological sites here, bounded by the natural borders of the [...]

We’ve been in Guatemala City for four days, running around nonstop. I slept for 45 minutes after our redeye Tuesday night and managed to motor through the following day. We spent Wednesday through Friday interviewing a variety of experts and government officials. During that time, we managed to hook up with a group of archaeologists [...]