Anabel Ford is dedicated to decoding the ancient Maya landscape. While living in Guatemala in 1978, she learned from local people that the Maya forest was an edible garden when she mapped a 30-km transect between the Petén sites of Tikal and Yaxhá. In 1983, she discovered and later mapped the Maya city El Pilar. In 1993, after settlement survey and excavations, she launched a multidisciplinary program to understand the culture and nature of El Pilar. Ford’s publications are cited nationally and internationally as part of the foundation of Maya settlement pattern studies. Her archaeological themes are diverse, appearing in geological, ethnobiological, geographical, and botanical arenas and locally in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. Her concern for management of cultural monuments, in-situ conservation, and tourism appear in Getty publications.