Content area
Full text
The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands . ANABEL FORD and RONALD NIGH . 2015. Routledge , London and New York . 260 pages, 59 figures, 13 tables. $34.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-61132-998-8 . $94.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-61132-997-1 . $31.46 (eBook), ISBN 978-1315417-936 .
Review
In this book, first published in 2015 by Left Coast Press, Anabel Ford and Ronald Nigh address a conundrum that has plagued Maya archaeology for over a century: How could an advanced civilization arise and flourish in a tropical forest environment considered by most westerners as an inhospitable and ill-suited setting for agriculture? Along these same lines, the supposed susceptibility of this environment has often been blamed for the decline or collapse of the civilization around AD 900, due to soil degradation through overuse, leading to erosion, nutrient loss, and weed invasion. Most recently, the vulnerability of the agro-ecosystem to cycles of drought has been suggested as a contributing factor to sociopolitical disorganization. Ford and Nigh offer a well-supported critique of the dominant perception of Maya milpa (slash-and-burn, maize-based) agriculture, presenting as an alternative what they refer to as "high-performance milpa," a form of "sophisticated, intensive agroforestry" (p. 41). Ford and Nigh do not claim to be the first to offer a revisionist perspective on the Maya and their agricultural system, recognizing the pioneering studies of Arturo Gomez-Pompa, Angel Palerm, Gene Wilken, and several others who attempted to enlighten the academic world to traditional, sustainable forest management systems known ethnographically to have been used by the Maya, or that were well-suited to the Maya forest. Ford and Nigh draw on decades of personal experience with traditional Maya farmers to present a much more fully developed appreciation of the sophisticated Maya forest gardener.
The introduction...