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Exploring Solutions Past: The Maya Forest Garden as Action for Climate Change
March 4, 2020 @ 7:00 am PST
How do we increase biodiversity, conserve water, mitigate environmental warming, build fertility and reduce erosion? Simple answer: nurture useful plants for food, construction, medicine, beauty and habitat!
But how do we determine the most useful plants? What are the processes that are needed to make the earth sustainable? How can we promote a sustainable process between people and their environment that preserves the knowledge and serves as a model all over our planet? It is no accident that the dominant Maya forest plants are all useful for our goals.
Dr. Ford is Director of the UCSB MesoAmerican Research Center and President of the nonprofit Exploring Solutions Past: the Maya Forest Alliance. Her research focuses on the ancient Maya landscape, combining investigation of archaeological settlement with research into traditional ecological knowledge. Understanding the value of Maya farming is critical for new conservation designs. Dr. Ford’s quest to understand the ancient Maya landscape has grown into several research areas related to future designs: How do the Maya interact with the forest? How did climate change and geography affect settlement patterns? How were population expansions and contractions related to the environment?
Gathering regularly since 1880, the Santa Barbara County Horticultural Society meets at 7:00 PM on the first Wednesday of the month at the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, on the corner of Foothill and La Cumbre roads. Visitors are always welcome.