Mirador, Guatemala

Where slash-and-burn agriculture, excessive logging, drug trafficking and looting proliferate, architectural conservation does not stand a chance. So, in the birthplace of Maya civilization, Global Heritage Fund not only participated in the scientific conservation work to restore the 2,000 year old city of El Mirador (“the look-out” in Spanish), we also created lasting economic opportunities in the surrounding areas of northern Guatemala, a human-centric approach to heritage that exemplifies our mission.

As late as the 1930s, aviators flying over Guatemala’s lowland jungles, including Charles Lindbergh, believed the massive limestone structures jutting above the vast rainforest below were merely volcanoes. It’s hard to see how they made this mistake, especially about La Danta, the 72-meter high pyramid within El Mirador considered the world’s largest by volume. La Danta rises above other impressive Preclassic Maya pyramids as well as temples, plazas and monumental artworks including the epic Popul Vuh frieze within the 6,400-square-kilometer Mirador Basin. Three times the size of downtown Los Angeles and teeming with an estimated 200,000 citizens, El Mirador served as the capital of this sophisticated civilization of perhaps a million people that archaeologist Richard Hansen, director of the Mirador Basin Project, calls “the first state-level society in the Western Hemisphere.” Centuries of silent abandon followed within Mesoamerica’s last great swath of subtropical rain forest until the 21st century when looters’ trenches and farmers’ ploughs damaged or destroyed virtually every site in the Mirador Basin.

Our restoration efforts centered on El Mirador and the emergency stabilization of La Danta. Specialists supported by Global Heritage Fund used cutting edge LIDAR technology, mapping 26 previously unknown Mayan cities and discovering monumental architecture within the precincts of El Mirador. All now have formal protection under the Guatemalan constitution. In tandem, Global Heritage Fund supported the placement of guards and rangers, implemented literacy courses and vocational training, and generated business development opportunities in the vicinity. Among the more than 300 locals employed in our projects is Juan Carlos Calderon who grew up in a small village near El Mirador. Uneducated and unemployed, Juan Carlo poached wildlife and looted Maya ruins to feed his family. Then Global Heritage Fund began working in the Mirador Basin. Juan Carlos found steady work as a guard, protecting what he once plundered. This stable job provides him with access to basic healthcare, continuing education and the steady income that helped Juan Carlos send his eldest son Enrique to study law at university in Guatemala City.

Some images courtesy of Dennis Jarvis, Bob Stanton, and FARES