Mayan Ways May Save Rain Forest : Guatemala: Indians are renouncing the slash-and-burn technique in favor of interplanting, an ancient farming method that enriches depleted soil.

Maya-descended Indians in northeastern Guatemala are being encouraged to revert to ancestral methods of farming in an effort to save the Peten jungle, Latin America’s second-largest tropical rain forest.

The experiment aims to replace the traditional slash-and-burn method by what is called interplanting, a method that also enriches the soil.

For centuries, the Peten Indians have planted their corn and other grains in jungle clearings.

When the soil becomes depleted every two years or so, they move on, clear a new area, sell the wood, burn the underbrush and plant their crops again.

Now the private, nonprofit Rodale Institute is persuading them to stay where they are and plant such natural fertilizers as velvet beans between the rows of corn.

When the corn is harvested, the beans are plowed under; in that way, the nitrogen content of the soil is restored.

Also, for those who do not slash and burn, the Pennsylvania-based institute will help them stop using chemical fertilizers, virtually all of which are harmful to the environment.

“The institute’s aim is to teach people how to modify agricultural production systems dangerous to the rain forest and adopt positive land management,” said Sergio Ruano, a member of the Rodale team.

The experiment began last year when Rodale workers distributed velvet beans to 10 families.

At harvest time, the families were asked to repay the beans to a small non-governmental organization and introduce five more neighbors to the project with the surplus.

It has since extended to 62 communities; in five years, the institute hopes to have enrolled 30,000 families in the project.

The Peten covers 3.9 million acres, but has only 400,000 inhabitants.

Institute experts believe the project stands a good chance of succeeding.

Traditionally, the Maya used slash-and-burn methods of farming.

By the time the Spanish conquerors arrived, they had started to look at alternative methods, but then those methods fell into disuse.

Farmers are also encouraged to cultivate breadfruit, a nutritious staple favored by the ancient Mayas that does not harm the land and requires little attention.

Rodale researchers in the Peten community of Motul San Jose also are investigating other ancient Mayan cultivation techniques, including the use of raised gardens.

Ruano said the project is studying those techniques to improve and capitalize on the ancients’ knowledge of how to maximize production without damaging the ecosystem.

Or, as Gustavo Porras Castejon, an independent anthropologist, put it:

“The Mayas made an effort to ecologically adapt to their environment and were capable of achieving productive agriculture without destroying the entire forest.”