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Up Close with Marie-Claire Paiz
By Courtney Leatherman
For The Nature Conservancy’s Marie-claire Paiz, there’s no place like a tropical forest. A deal-in-progress to protect a huge swath in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula
is close to home and heart.
As director of the Conservancy’s Southern Mexico Program, you’re working with local partners to broker the second of two deals that will protect 600,000 acres of forest surrounding the Maya temples of Calakmul. What’s at stake? A huge track of forestland that is great for species that need large ranges—like jaguar and wild peccary. This is one of the few places in the world where you can climb to the top of a pyramid, look around, and it’s forest 360 degrees. Everything you see is this green sea.
I’ve heard it could soon be awash in tourists. The state of Campeche wants to develop Calakmul as a tourist destination but is not sure how to do it. So it contracted [Conservancy partner] Pronatura Península de Yucatán to develop a basic assessment of the area. At the same time, it’s working with an agency that’s been behind some of the big tourist monsters, like Cancun. So it’s a very interesting time because we can help steer the development. We want it to be respectful of the forest and the archaeological sites and also be good for the people.
You’re trying to make a difference. My father was an educator with UNESCO, and one thing I got from him was that whenever you leave this world, make sure you’ve done something to make it a little bit better.
Your father died when you were 15, and your family returned from West Africa to your native Guatemala. What did that move mean for you, having lived most of your life in Africa? I knew I was Guatemalan, but I hadn’t developed a sense of belonging to a place. I felt happy being a world citizen. Although it was not an ideal situation because I had just lost my dad, it was nice coming back to Guatemala and really discovering my country.
How did you do that? I decided, I’m going to take my backpack and see the places that most Guatemalans never see, like Tikal [a Maya site]. Twenty years ago, nobody traveled to those places. It was dangerous. It was during the civil war.
Who traveled with you? Sometimes my brother. He was 12; I was 17. On a chicken bus.
A chicken bus? It’s basically a school bus from the United States that they paint with bright colors, and inside you have the woman with tomatoes and chickens going to the market and the drunk guy who’s yelling the whole time and the boombox cranked up with the bad sound system. That’s when I started to see the beautiful mountains and villages. That experience confirmed my desire to work with nature and people, and it helped create roots with my country.
Your first biological fieldwork after college and before graduate school at Yale was a three-year project involving resplendent quetzals, Guatemala’s national bird. What were you up to? The main idea was to understand how the birds were moving up and down the mountain range during different seasons and to make sure the reserve was protecting all of their habitat. We fit them with radios before releasing them back into the wild. The study results allowed us to expand the reserve boundaries.
So you actually held one? Oh, I have held, what, 10 in my hands.
Wow. What was that like? The first one, it was like holding a creature of God—this fantastic bird that the Mayas have revered forever. You feel humbled and a huge responsibility. I had taken off my boots, because I wanted to walk without making noise. I was basically walking barefoot on the forest floor, my socks totally soaked, but at this moment, my only focus—the center of the universe—was the bird in my hands.
Had you ever seen one before? No.
But it’s the national bird—on Guatemala’s flag and money. Do you think many Guatemalans have seen one? Nope. A few decades ago, people might have thought it was a totally mythical bird. During the project, we were trying to put a lot of information out, to make sure people knew about the importance of saving the species per se but also as symbol of the cloud forest.
Someone described you as a “spirit of the woods.” What is it about the forest, and especially the Maya Forest, that attracts you? I know I can put some words to it, but it’s really more of a feeling. I like the smell of the forest; I like the feeling of the leaves under my boots. I like looking around for the monkey at the top of a tree or for a butterfly behind a leaf. It’s a place that’s full of surprises. And it always fills me back up with energy. More and more, my job requires me to be in an office or flying for meetings in the United States. And every time I get back in the forest, it reminds me: This is why I’m doing this.
