Dispatches
Guatemala Expedition: Day 7
January 11, 2011
Rainforest Alliance & Sustainable Forest Management: Uaxactún
Omar showed us a map of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve this morning. Red areas represent deforestation; white, preserved forest. The expanse of land in the west—the national forest—was pure red. Western concession lands? White.
I continue to be flabbergasted by the lack of control or compliance in the preservation national forest lands in Guatemala—which makes the success of concession model even more significant.But, concessions face continual challenges, not only from illegal activities like narco-trafficing–a huge threat to forest preservation activists–and exploitive agricultural activities, but also from the Guatemalan government. ACOFOP is a group of 22 communities organized into concessions and dedicated to sustainable forestry management in Petén. ACOFOP was created out of the necessity to unite communities as a way to gain power, and Marcedonia Cortave, the Executive Director of ACOFOP said that it’s a constant fight against the government to maintain the equilibrium of limited development in the concessions. “Many people don’t understand the concession model. They think either the land should be nationally protected, or legally developed,” he said. “The biggest challenge in the past was demonstrate that the communities were able to manage and run the forest.”
Monday, we headed north to the concession area of Uaxactún, north of Tikal National Park. While sustainable timber harvesting is an important source of income in the forest, community leaders recognize the importance of diversifying the economy. This diversification comes in the form of non-timber activities, like eco-tourism and the sale of chicle, xate, and cultivation of Maya nuts.
On the way to Uaxactún, we stopped to visit Gladys, a woman who runs a Maya nut cooperative. The cooperative is women run from start to finish, from the collection of the nuts in the forest, to processing, cultivating, toasting, grinding, and packaging the nut flour. Both ACOFOP and Rainforest Alliance helped this Mayan Nut cooperative with funding and business development, thus enabling the now self-sustaining business to employ 16 women in the community.
Another example of a non-timber business that involves women is xate cultivation. Xate is an ornamental palm used in flower arrangements, and one of the most abundant plans in the reserve. Men go into the forest to collect the shiny green fronds, bring them back to the processing plant, where women sort, bind, and pack the fronds for export. A bundle of palms these palms sells for $10-12 dollars in the U.S., and generates $500,000 annually in all the concession combined. By enabling these different business ventures to succeed, organizations like Rainforest Alliance ensure the survival of these communities that live off the forest in a sustainable and responsible way, thus ensuring the survival of the forest itself.
