The Future of Petén

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A new report by CONAP, Guatemala’s national parks agency, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, predicts an intense year to come for forest fires in northern Guatemala. Each year, forest fires burn large sections of old-growth tropical forest in Petén, Guatemala’s northernmost province. Some fires begin naturally. Others are set by farmers, ranchers, or drug traffickers [...]

July 13, 2008 FLORES, Guatemala — From our plush hotel balcony in Flores, Don Oscar’s house sits by my pinky when I stretch my arm out. A week ago we landed there straight from the bus ride from Guatemala City and scrambled to keep things organized and to have a sense of where we were [...]

July 12, 2008 TINTAL, Guatemala — Tintal is quiet and empty without the anthropologists. In the distance the howling monkeys scrape their calls through the night. We sit under a xate rooftop and listen to it rain again and again while we drink hot sweetened milk – our eyes glazed over from fatigue. We’ve untied [...]