During her May 2005 trip to the mountainous Guatemalan highlands, Julie visited the Maya-Mum community of Casaca.

The population is served by a local NGO, AFOPADI, which is supported by the EarthWays Foundation in Malibu. Among other aspects, the project supports organic agriculture and reforestation.

In the village near Huehuetenango, saplings we had donated were waiting to be planted after the drought ended and the rainy season began.

Unfortunately, the rains of summer/fall 2005 decimated the crops (corn, squash and bean) throughout the country. In October 2005, intensified by Hurricane Stan and alarming erosion , devastating rain & mudslides wrecked havoc throughout much of Guatemala. Consequently, Julie had to reschedule a planned fall visit.

Despite their history of extreme struggle and loss, Julie has found the Guatemalan people and land to be tremendously inspiring.

In the late 1980s, after working extensively with refugees from the Guatemalan civil war, Julie visited Guatemala twice. Since then, cloud forest has been eroded to mere clouds.

Numerous reasons exist for the severe and debilitating deforestation. In Guatemala, they include an unequal distribution of wealth and the fact that indigenous people were forced to fell trees by the Guatemalan army during the 30-year civil war.

See Jonathan Moller’s remarkable book, Our Culture Is Our Resistance: Repression, Refuge and Healing in Guatemala. Amidst this abused landscape, Julie clearly felt that though nature suffers from manmade horrors, it does not honor manmade borders. The lack of oxygen-producing and erosion-combating trees in Guatemala eventually has a negative global effect.

Julie will shortly revisit the reforestation project to which J. Siegel Designs, Inc. doubled its promised contributions in 2005. She would like to thank her many generous clients for donating as well. Due to the lack of harvest, however, the village will be facing severe food shortages in the coming months. If you wish to contribute to the project, please contact us at:julie@jsiegeldesigns.com so that we can facilitate your tax-deductible contribution to EarthWays.