We Maya of southern Belize created the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management when our ancestral forests were turned into a national park – and then slated for oil drilling.

SATIIM is recognized on the international level as the first Indigenous organization to successfully fight for the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the country level. In 2009, SATIIM was recognized with a World Bank Marketplace Award World Bank’s “Indigenous Adaptation to Climate Change Fund,” for its model of Indigenous-led community forestry. In 2011, SATIIM’s founder, Gregory Ch’oc, was a finalist for the prestigious Goldman Environmental Award. In 2012, SATIIM conducted the first study on gender equity in Maya communities in southern Belize in a UN/EU project on deforestation and soil conservation. In 2013 SATIIM conducted the first survey on climate changes observed by Maya communities in southern Belize. In 2015, SATIIM started to create Belize’s first Maya Land Registry through community participatory mapping. In 2016 SATIIM began a collaboration working with Maya organizations in Guatemala on the first Maya-led participatory model of community resource management. That same year the Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage recognized SATIM for “its tireless efforts in both conservation and human rights.”

As its organizational name implies, SATIIM seeks a unique path to conservation based on Indigenous management and traditional knowledge.  Compared with other conservation NGOs in Belize which tend to be directed by urban, non-indigenous people, SATIIM is uniquely directed by a Maya leader who also chairs the national association for Protection Areas.  SATIIM is also unusual in that representatives of the four major Q’eqchi’ villages, Crique Sarco, Sunday Wood, Conejo and Midway in addition to a Garifuna representative from Barranco serve on its board of directors