Losing the Belizean Blues

 

In my dim and distant childhood, the alleged rise in the earth's temperature was a hotly contested theory.

In 2024, we hotly contested fires.

It stopped raining in January, and by May, temperatures reached unbearable triple digits.  Parrots dropped dead from the trees. A group of peccaries were found dying, spooking villagers who were tempted to feast on a windfall of wild pig meat, but what had killed them?  Then the fires started.  Much of southern and western Belize’s tropical rainforest burned. Corpses of wildlife littered the blackened hills, including, heartbreakingly, a mother tapir who died with her babies huddled beneath her. Farmers in San Pedro Columbia lost about half of the cultivated land (much of it planted in chocolate trees) to fire. The butterfly farmers, depending as they do on an intact local ecosystem, are struggling, although we are so blessed that our homes did not burn. My family joined in the fight to put out one of the first of the fires to threaten the village, but then, with smoke-addled lungs and brain, I jumped on a plane.  This behavior seems shameful, as it is typical of both ex-pats and Belizeans to run off to California when the going gets rough at home. But the alternative would have been missing the birth of my first grandchild. 

Before she can even hold her head up unsupported, California- born Kayjah models her Belizean crochet hat by Gina

I will forever be grateful to valiant Marlon who stayed to protect the butterfly farm, breathing the thick smoke that blocked the sun, and joining the ragtag group of volunteers who saved what they could of the district.  I have just returned ( A grandma! Praise Jah for Kayjah!) to hear their stories.

One involves an intoxicated Belize Defense Force volunteer who lay down in the bush to sleep right next to a raging bushfire and had to be dragged to safety. The villagers, too, had some ill-advised “Rambo” moments, confronting towering flames armed only with machetes and backpack sprayers, unprotected by any gear and in one notable case, barefoot. The Ikal family, fighting around the clock to save their farm, washed the soot from their faces, put on their nice clothes, and smiled proudly for the pictures at Debby and Adrian’s high school graduation ceremony, but immediately returned to the farm, flinging aside the graduation caps and gowns as they beat out encroaching flames. It was a blessing that the rain came before there were any human fatalities. Of course, rain is a mixed blessing:  after the unprecedented heat in May, hurricane season promises to be a doozy.

The new climate, it turns out, is hardest on small farmers. Loss of ecosystem produces unpredictable changes. With the coming of rain, the farmers planted, and then a plague of moths of Biblical proportions consumed the corn crop. As Maya families traditionally eat tortillas for every meal, lack of corn is not an option. Telesforo reminded me yesterday that the elders believe that humans were created from corn masa. I had to laugh because I knew that, according to that story, I’m descended from the undercooked and pale first tortilla, which was followed by the people of the burnt tortilla, culminating in the perfectly cooked medium-brown Maya tortilla. I have to laugh because if I don’t, I’ll cry. Imagine San Pedro Columbia without corn!

The butterfly farmers, like everyone, are wondering if they should simply give up.  Dryas Julia and Zebra (Charitonia) butterflies remain plentiful, and the farm still resounds with the popping of the “Crackers” (Hamadryas). The bread-and-butter butterflies, “Owl” (Caligo) and “Belizean Blue” (Morpho), however, are gone.   They’ve always been common, feeding in bristly blue clusters on fallen mangoes, but no one has seen a Blue since May.

Belizean child feeding a Belizean Blue in March when they were still plentiful

We haven’t found a butterfly farm that still has Morpho helenor montezuma, or Belizean Blue, the small, bright Belizean that stands out in a market dominated by the larger but duller Costa Rican Morphos. Some have given up and ordered the Costa Rican variety, but we have decided to hold out, hoping that the EcoPark’s signature butterfly still survives in the remaining jungle near the Guatemalan border. Sylvanus, who enjoys deep pathless places and sleeping in caves, has offered to lead an expedition to the Cumbres sinkhole, but the great log bridges across the creeks have burned, and I doubt that even the brave and dauntless butterfly farmers of San Pedro Columbia, for whom my respect deepens daily, could capture butterflies live, fold them into padded envelopes, hike two days, swim with them, and deliver them into the flight house in breeding condition.

Let us hope. Give thanks for stubborn farmers like Sylvanus who says, “As long as I have life and land, I will plant.”