Lamanai Named on the 2022 World Monument Watch

March 9, 2022
by Larry Waight +

The Lamanai Archeological reserve and its wider cultural landscape, located in Indian Church Village in Northern Belize have been named to the 2022 World Monument Watch, which consists of 25 of the world’s most significant heritage sites in need of immediate attention and whose preservation is urgent and vital to the communities surrounding them.

According to the 2022 World Monument website, Lamanai along with 24 other sites, that are located around the world, were chosen from among 225 nominations as they each demonstrated pressing global challenges of climate change, imbalance tourism, under-representation, and recovery from the crisis while underscoring the need for greater action to support the various sites and the people who care for them.

The World Monuments Fund then went on to indicate that Lamanai was chosen due to it being an international tourist destination encompassing an ancient Maya city it required a more inclusive heritage management plan to help reinforce the relationship between the site and local residents. While the site said that revenues from tourism are used to finance the management and upkeep of archeological sites around the country, it also provides little to no benefit to adjacent communities since the current tourism model limits community engagement and benefits by restricting access and sidelining local residents from decision making.

The site quoted, ” The inclusion of Lamanai on the 2022 World Monuments Watch underscores these challenges and the need for sustainable tourism management that integrates the local community, ensuring enhanced interpretation of diverse narratives, strengthened protection of the natural environment, and improved local benefit.”

A press release from the Heritage Network Belize, also quoted that ”A sustainable future for Lamanai is contingent upon progressive collaboration and balancing management tourism, natural and cultural protection, cultural memory and community quality of life.”

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The release explained that while Lamanai is an archeological site, its physical attributes represent diverse and contested histories of the Maya, Spanish, Chinese and British descendants in Belize, thereby functioning as an ”Outdoor classroom” where local and international tourists can interact with the monument and buildings of Belize’s past. According to the release, the site is socially significant today as it was in 3,000 years ago, due in part to its longevity, its association with historic events, and its symbolism for descendants, indigenous and migrants, and its contribution to nation-building, ”

Sylvia Batty, the Director of the Heritage Education, Network in Belize noted, ”Lamanai is an amazing site and when you put all of that together it really is this intricate story about the history of Belize and for us and the nomination we look at some of the aspects at the forefront of those narratives, they are there, they exist, but everybody likes to see the ancient Maya site and what we are trying to say with this nomination, is that there are more to Lamanai than just the ancient Maya site core.”

Batty and her team of archeologists will now work with local stakeholders and site owners to develop a collaborative project for the site that will be rolled out over two years.