Indigenous community members’ views about water quality in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala

ABSTRACT

Cyanobacteria blooms, a recent phenomenon in Lake Atitlán (Guatemala), impact the lake’s ecology and local Maya communities’ cultural identity, subsistence, and employment. The blooms and their anthropogenic provenience are relatively well understood scientifically, yet beliefs and attitudes of impacted communities are less explored. We investigated one Maya community’s¹ perceptions of the blooms via separate focus groups of three men and four women from Santa Cruz La Laguna. Participants described how daily lives and employment were negatively impacted by the blooms, expressing a desire for more communication among those working to improve water quality. Participants desired leadership and resources in order to participate and take action. Men and women differed in views of who is responsible for the health of Lake Atitlán; men expressed greater importance of government and non-government organizations; women emphasized that both the government and local citizens play critical roles. Participants expressed a desire for education and knowledge about cyanobacteria blooms and to contribute to solutions. To broaden understanding of indigenous stakeholders’ perspectives, additional research is needed that includes other Atitlán watershed communities to promote socio-ecological discourse. As cultural eutrophication exists at the nexus of science and culture, future work must be extended beyond disciplinarily boundaries and consider collectively the relevant natural and social sciences to understand the causes, consequences, and solutions to the blooms within the context of environmental justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Lake Atitlán
• Guatemala
• Maya
• cyanobacteria bloom
• lake water quality
• eutrophication
• focus groups

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the participants of our focus groups and the community organization that hosted us for their help. We also acknowledge the undergraduate students who participated as student-observers in the focus groups and provided their perspectives. We have no conflict of interest to disclose.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this article we use the term Maya community to refer to the specific, local group we worked with in Santa Cruz La Laguna; when we are referring to the larger Maya community/population, we make this explicit.