Guatemala: The Future of Petén
Launched July 7, 2008
In the remote Petén region of northern Guatemala, environmentalists are fighting environmentalists in a behind-the-scenes ideological conflict over how best to save the vast but rapidly shrinking Maya forest.
American archaeologists, Guatemalan bankers and the country's government have aligned to support an ambitious plan to protect hundreds of thousands of acres and support the excavation of ancient Maya cities with tourist dollars. But some international green groups, which in the 1990s helped local communities win the right to build "sustainable" logging businesses on overlapping lands, say new, large-scale tourism would sweep away the local-empowerment movement they've worked so hard to build.
Grantee
Born in Perú and raised in Vermont, David Barreda studied Geography and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and journalism at the University of Missouri. He currently is a staff...
Grantee
Kara graduated from the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism with a Master’s in Journalism. She received her B.A. in Literature from New College of Florida and has six years of...
Grantee
Michael Stoll is an environmental journalist, college journalism teacher and director of a nonprofit media-reform project in San Francisco. He first learned about the conflicting visions of the fate...
Grantee
Nadia worked three years as an investigator for death row habeas corpus appeals. She is currently producing a documentary short about two formerly incarcerated youth.
Her interest in international...
The two-day trek to El Mirador and the three-day stay was our introduction as a group to Petén, Guatemala.
Photos by David M. Barreda
December 15, 2008 /
Earth Island Institute
I knew things were bad when Paulino dipped his empty plastic water bottle into a shallow, muddy swamp puddle.
December 13, 2008 /
MercuryNews
Buried beneath deep jungle growth in Guatemala's northern reaches, the ancient Maya metropolis of El Mirador is worth the walking. And walking, and walking some more.
Go now for the rare chance to...
July 28, 2008 /
Untold Stories
Nadia Sussman, for the Pulitzer Center
San Francisco, California
July 28, 2008 /
Untold Stories
Michael Stoll, for the Pulitzer Center
Laguna Del Tigre National Park, Guatemala
July 24, 2008 /
Untold Stories
Michael Stoll, for the Pulitzer Center
La Pasadita, Guatemala
July 22, 2008 /
Untold Stories
It's the last leg of our journey back from Guatemala and I marvel at the difference in the landscape from above — houses neatly dotted against the foothill ridges and valleys of California's slopi
July 22, 2008 /
Untold Stories
I finally got to see more of Guatemala by land yesterday. I left Flores, Petén, with Kara and Nadia at 6 a.m.
July 22, 2008 /
Untold Stories
As the sun emerges from the gray brown smog that hangs over Guatemala City's wet streets, we board our plane and are inundated by the sounds of English words, and babies crying — for the most
December 15, 2008 /
Earth Island Institute
I knew things were bad when Paulino dipped his empty plastic water bottle into a shallow, muddy swamp puddle.
December 13, 2008 /
MercuryNews
Buried beneath deep jungle growth in Guatemala's northern reaches, the ancient Maya metropolis of El Mirador is worth the walking. And walking, and walking some more.
Go now for the rare chance to...
The two-day trek to El Mirador and the three-day stay was our introduction as a group to Petén, Guatemala.
Photos by David M. Barreda