Xochil Ku is a registered community Association (registered 1998) that started out of the need to raise awareness with in the community of Indian Church of the importance of the local biodiversity and cultural heritage. They have created increased interest in the environment and its conservation through the development of an education facility focusing on the live butterflies of the area. Through the Meso-American Biological Corridors Programme, they initiated a three-year community Peccary Breeding Project proposal, which was accepted for funding in October 1999. Community participation and commitment to this project was integral to preserving the legacy of the Mazewal indians and ensuring their future.

The cultural museum was built with the help of the elders who have donated traditional tools, utility items. Their history, handed down through the generations, will help new generations remember their own ways. We have built our first facility—A live butterfly exhibit was built to promote environmental education. It's a large cage where the children of Indian Church can walk with the butterflies and learn about their environment.

Objectives:
Xochil Ku has worked with the Government of Belize to establish a co-managed protected area within the framework of the Meso-American Biological Corridors:

• to increase the scope of the project in promoting environmental and conservation awareness,
• to create an area for children, our most valuable assets, to learn to appreciate and value their natural heritage,
• to create an area where tourists, part of the larger World community, can come to learn of the importance of the environment and the need for projects, however small or great,
• to prevent abuse of the environment through pollution and biodiversity loss, and the associated problems,
• to create an area that will be a resource for the people of Indian Church, allowing them to diversify away from land clearance, through the benefits of tourism and its by-products through the construction and maintenance of facilities, production and sale of arts and crafts, and teaching of the old Mayan ways and language to enhance Mazewal cultural heritage, which is rapidly being lost.

Through a Community's project, they hope to teach of the importance of their natural heritage, not just to their own people, but to all who belong to the community called Earth. Seeing the problems caused by deforestation around us the changing rain patterns, the decrease in natural commodities such as medicinal plants and game species once so important to the Mazewal, they wish to promote better care of their lands, using more sustainable farming techniques, promoting alternatives to farming through tourism, and to promote a higher standard of living for our Community without sacrificing the forests.

They would like their children to grow knowing the value of their natural and cultural resources, to be able to actually see the wildlife, and not just learn of them through stories of the elders.