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Petén’s community forest concessions: A pillar of forest conservation and livelihoods development in Guatemala


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Joint FTA/PIM research has generated scientific evidence of the socio-economic performance of community forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) in Petén, Guatemala, which has informed technical documents and the revision of the technical norms for concession renewal by Guatemala's Council for Protected Areas (CONAP) in September 2019 as well as the first renewal of a community concession contract (Cooperative Carmelita) in December 2019. The study, led by Bioversity/ICRAF and carried out in close collaboration with CIFOR, Rainforest Alliance, the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) and local partners, covered all 12 community forest concessions with an area of about 400,000 ha. Photo by FTA/PIM
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FTA-PIM research documents show strong benefits of community forest concessions

A quarter-century-long experiment with community forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala’s Petén region has become a shining example of how community stewardship of tropical forests can contribute to forest conservation and livelihoods development. Yet as concession contracts come up for renewal,[1] competing interests such as cattle ranching, tourism, oil exploitation and drug trafficking could threaten this model of success.

Established in 1990, the Maya Biosphere Reserve is the largest protected area in Central America. Forty percent of its area has been set aside as a Multiple Use Zone to promote sustainable forest use. Starting in the second half of the 1990s, 12 community forest concessions were granted to local communities for 25 years, covering an area of about 400,000 ha. Each concession is operated by a community forest enterprise (CFE), which extracts timber and non-timber forest products sustainably, as documented by FSC certification.

Joint research under the CGIAR Research Programs on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) published in 2019 shows that communities can skillfully manage and conserve forests while strengthening livelihoods and generating other benefits. In the nine active concessions,[2] which together occupy more than 350,000 ha, deforestation rates were close to zero (0.1% per year), compared to 1% per year in the core zone and 5.5% per year in the buffer zone. In these concessions, sustainable forest management has allowed CFE member households to move out of extreme poverty – and numerous households out of poverty altogether. Forest-based income has contributed to improved housing, education and health, and overall livelihoods development.

“Petén’s community forest concessions represent a model of forest governance that shows how granting long-term forest resource use rights to local communities can lead to substantial benefits for both forest conservation and local livelihoods,” said Dietmar Stoian, a scientist with World Agroforestry (ICRAF, one of FTA’s managing partners) and lead author of the above-mentioned analysis of the socioeconomic performance of the community forest enterprises.

Findings from the analysis of the active and inactive concessions informed the technical norms for concession renewal by Guatemala’s Council for Protected Areas (CONAP) in September 2019, as well as the first renewal of a community concession contract (Cooperative Carmelita) in December 2019. The analysis was led by The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT/ICRAF and carried out in close collaboration with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR, FTA’s lead managing partner), Rainforest Alliance, the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP, and other local partners.

Widespread interest and engagement

The attention paid to the evolution and outcomes of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala and globally has been substantial, as has been the mobilization of resources – financial, human and political – in support of it.

“There has been significant support from international cooperation and development agencies, and the results have generated widespread interest,” said Iliana Monterroso, a scientist at CIFOR and co-author of the study.

At the same time, there are threats to the continuity of the community forest concessions, as more CFEs await the renewal of their contracts over the next few years. Large-scale tourism development in the northern part of the reserve, for example, may compromise the viability of some concessions, as tourism advocates claim that timber extraction by local communities is not compatible with tourism in that part of the reserve. These advocates are behind a bill which is currently before the US Senate, that would fund a project on the Mirador Mayan archaeological site that could result in depriving the communities of their rights to sustainably harvest timber. This could affect five concessions areas, leaving them with fewer livelihood options (as the envisioned type of tourism will largely benefit external tour operators and private investors).

Vice News recently issued an interesting documentary on this case:

“This is one of the principal conflicts over land in the reserve, along with interests in expanding the area under cattle ranching and intensifying oil exploration,” said Stoian.

“An ongoing study supported by PIM will shed further light into the political economy underlying these conflicts, and explore responses from community organizations to thwart non-science-based counter-narratives put forward by powerful groups in support of their vested interests,” added Monterroso, who is leading the study.

To share their research findings and discuss implications, ICRAF and CIFOR, together with Rainforest Alliance and ACOFOP, organized two key events in 2019 around the World Bank Land & Poverty Conference in Washington.

Scientists from CIFOR were then invited to contribute to the 2020 Human Development Report for Guatemala, led by the United Nations Development Programme. This was the first time the report used a territorial approach for analyzing challenges to development. And in another panel on innovating finance for sustainable landscapes organized by FTA at the Global Landscapes Forum in Luxembourg, ACOFOP’s Maria Teresita Chinchilla Miranda shared details on the successful FSC-certified management of over 500,000 hectares of forest in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve.

ACOFOP’s commercial services branch, Community Enterprise for Forest Services (FORESCOM), was also invited to the panel following an interview wiith FTA partner Tropenbos that highlighted its various successes.[3]

CFEs now generate USD 5 million annually. With the support of ACOFOP, some community enterprises and FTA partner CATIE, FORESCOM set up a new community fund that offers member organizations flexible loans with lower interest rates than commercial banks.

Invitations to share the findings at the XXV IUFRO World Congress in Brazil (late 2019) and ACOFOP’s 30th anniversary (early 2020) triggered further debate around the future of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. And some countries, such as Indonesia, Colombia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are looking to this case to inform their own approaches in support of community forestry.

Strengthened cooperation after years of conflict

The development of the community forest concessions in Guatemala has been characterized by collective action and adaptive management. Given the diverse stakeholder groups in Petén, the degree of cooperation is all the more remarkable.

“I haven’t seen anything like this level of collaboration,” said Monterroso. “Because the model arose out of Guatemala’s peace agreements following decades of civil war, and because the concession system grants land management rights, the communities were able to organize around the specific needs of their diverse membership base. They demonstrated their capacity to do this sustainably, managing the forest for community profit without negatively affecting the environment, and developing their own mechanisms to ensure common values despite their different interests.”

The nine active CFEs were able to adapt to dynamic changes, based on different legal entities (civil society, association, cooperative and corporation) and management models. Over time, these CFEs have seen their membership grow, their staff gain business management skills, and the diversity and value of their assets grow – along with the perceived benefits for CFE members and local communities. CFEs continue working to ensure equal access to benefits for men and women members, building capacities, promoting affirmative actions such as introducing explicit rules in membership and decision-making spaces, and diversifying their engagement in value chains that also allow for the participation of women and youth.

“In a context that is highly dynamic, these CFEs have shown resilience under the constant external pressures that threaten to undermine not only their livelihoods but also their successful conservation outcomes, said Monterroso.

Mahogany: sustainable and lucrative

The availability of precious woods has been a key factor in sustaining the economic viability of the community concessions. During 2012–2016, timber sales generated a total gross income of around USD 24.7 million, with an average of 74% of that coming from sales of mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla). Although the region is rich in other tree species, FSC-certified mahogany generates the highest returns by far. Since the species is listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Petén’s CFEs have a competitive advantage in the international market when offering certified sawn wood from this species. Sales from the certified concessions also rose for non-timber products like xate (Chamaedorea palm), whose fronds are used in flower arrangements.

The CFEs have used the profits from these sales (along with better access to credit and financing) to consolidate their operations, to invest in the effective control of human-generated fires and wildfires, and to create internal financing mechanisms for small-scale start-ups like carpentry and handicrafts as well as microcredit schemes. These CFEs have also been able to overcome barriers to investments, with positive outcomes at the community and forest levels.

At the household level, forest income contributes an average of 38% of household income in the nine active CFEs. Annual forest-based income varies widely between USD 500 and USD 10,000 per household, but most CFE members have been able to move out of poverty, reinvesting that income into health, education, and other livelihood assets.

“All children of these households are benefitting from some form of formal education and are much more likely than their parents to attend high school,” said Stoian. “This allows them to search out alternative livelihood options, including management positions in the CFEs and other endeavors linked to forest conservation through sustainable operations in the Maya Biosphere Reserve.”

Overall CFE membership saw a rise of 26% between 2000 and 2017, with some CFEs providing specific incentives for women to become a member. The study also found that women have increased their participation in the active CFEs over the past two decades, either through involvement in the processing of non-timber forest products such as xate or breadnut, or through their engagement in CFE management or their boards of trustees.

“This analysis shows how community enterprises are able to sustainably generate forest income, reinvest it, and gain access to local and external financing. This allowed them to diversify their activities, add value, develop new products and place them into timber and non-timber forest product value chains,” said Stoian and Monterroso, who are committed to supporting the forest communities and the process of concession renewal through science-based evidence and engagement with stakeholders from public and private sectors and civil society.

They conclude that the evidence of both environmental and socioeconomic performance by the community concessions makes a strong case for concession renewal.

 “With five of FTA’s seven partners involved in addition to PIM, this body of research highlights the value added of the strong collaboration among FTA partners, with other CGIAR Research Programs, and with national and local partners” remarked Vincent Gitz, Director of FTA.

[1] The first concession contracts came up for renewal in 2019.

[2] In 2009, the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP), the authority in charge of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, terminated the concession contract of two CFEs and suspended the management plan of a third due to noncompliance with the stipulations. These inactive concessions reflect the disadvantage they had at the onset of the devolution process in view of limited concession areas (about 50,000 ha across the three concessions), lack of high-value timber, and livelihood trajectories based on agriculture rather than forest activities.

[3] As a result of the Tropenbos interview series and the GLF Luxembourg event, FTA has released a publication on innovative finance for sustainable landscapes illustrated by the example of ACOFOP.


This article was written by Erin O’Connell.

This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with ICRAF, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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  • Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development

Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development


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Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D.Stoian/Bioversity International
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Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International

Recent findings evidenced that when forests are in the hands of local communities, governance, conservation and livelihoods improve.

Reform advocates claim that local communities are better stewards of forests than the state, particularly in settings where understaffing and other limitations do not allow government agencies to live up to their mandate.

There is increasing evidence that the devolution of rights to forest communities leads to a decrease in deforestation rates, better protection of biodiversity, and significant livelihood benefits of community members, especially if linked to the development of community forest enterprises.

Bioversity International and partners are contributing to this evidence base through large-scale socioeconomic surveys in the Petén region of Guatemala where 25-year forest concessions have been granted to the communities in the late 1990s.

CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) scientist Dietmar Stoian of Bioversity International, who has led this research since 2014 says: “For the first time there is a complete socioeconomic data set across the nine active concessions, which show that, if carefully managed, the community concessions allow local people to move out of poverty while conserving the forest and its inherent biodiversity.”

“While we observe significant variation across and within the concessions, community stewardship of the forest resources has proven to be a viable model for forest conservation and livelihoods development,” he adds.

Members of a community forest enterprise grade leaves of the Chamaedorea palm for export. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International

As the community concessions need to undergo renewal over the next few years, Bioversity International, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Asociación de Comunidades Forestales de Petén (ACOFOP) — the umbrella organization of forest communities in the Petén — organized a workshop in September.

Over 40 researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, attended the workshop to take stock of existing evidence of the concessions’ environmental and socioeconomic performance and to discuss options going forward.

CIFOR scientist Steven Lawry explained in an interview with Forests News that the approach has produced positive results: “Deforestation rates within the concessions are markedly lower than in surrounding areas. Employment has increased, and community members receive dividends from timber sales.”

What is more, the resident forest communities are now able to make an income also from regulated hunting, collecting non-timber forest products, farming, and working off-farm. The diversification of their income sources contributes to their improved livelihoods by providing greater stability and food security.

“The community forest concession model has informed other ongoing processes for rights devolution in forest regions,” said Iliana Monterroso, co-organizer of the workshop on behalf of CIFOR. In fact, Indonesia, China and Colombia are looking at how the forest concession model might benefit their countries.

Originally published on the website of Bioversity International.


This research has been supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) with funding by the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC). It is part of the CGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors. We thank ADA and ADC for their funding and all donors who support PIM and FTA through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.


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  • Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development

Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development


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Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D.Stoian/Bioversity International
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International

Recent findings evidenced that when forests are in the hands of local communities, governance, conservation and livelihoods improve.

Reform advocates claim that local communities are better stewards of forests than the state, particularly in settings where understaffing and other limitations do not allow government agencies to live up to their mandate.

There is increasing evidence that the devolution of rights to forest communities leads to a decrease in deforestation rates, better protection of biodiversity, and significant livelihood benefits of community members, especially if linked to the development of community forest enterprises.

Bioversity International and partners are contributing to this evidence base through large-scale socioeconomic surveys in the Petén region of Guatemala where 25-year forest concessions have been granted to the communities in the late 1990s.

CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) scientist Dietmar Stoian of Bioversity International, who has led this research since 2014 says: “For the first time there is a complete socioeconomic data set across the nine active concessions, which show that, if carefully managed, the community concessions allow local people to move out of poverty while conserving the forest and its inherent biodiversity.”

“While we observe significant variation across and within the concessions, community stewardship of the forest resources has proven to be a viable model for forest conservation and livelihoods development,” he adds.

Members of a community forest enterprise grade leaves of the Chamaedorea palm for export. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International

As the community concessions need to undergo renewal over the next few years, Bioversity International, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Asociación de Comunidades Forestales de Petén (ACOFOP) — the umbrella organization of forest communities in the Petén — organized a workshop in September.

Over 40 researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, attended the workshop to take stock of existing evidence of the concessions’ environmental and socioeconomic performance and to discuss options going forward.

CIFOR scientist Steven Lawry explained in an interview with Forests News that the approach has produced positive results: “Deforestation rates within the concessions are markedly lower than in surrounding areas. Employment has increased, and community members receive dividends from timber sales.”

What is more, the resident forest communities are now able to make an income also from regulated hunting, collecting non-timber forest products, farming, and working off-farm. The diversification of their income sources contributes to their improved livelihoods by providing greater stability and food security.

“The community forest concession model has informed other ongoing processes for rights devolution in forest regions,” said Iliana Monterroso, co-organizer of the workshop on behalf of CIFOR. In fact, Indonesia, China and Colombia are looking at how the forest concession model might benefit their countries.

Originally published on the website of Bioversity International.


This research has been supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) with funding by the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC). It is part of the CGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors. We thank ADA and ADC for their funding and all donors who support PIM and FTA through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.


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  • Gender-responsive methodology for value chain development

Gender-responsive methodology for value chain development


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Testing the 5Capitals-G methodology in India. Photo by Shrinivas Hegde
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Testing the 5Capitals-G methodology in India. Photo by Shrinivas Hegde

Over the past decade, value chain development has been widely promoted as a catalyst for rural economic growth.

As smallholder farmers become increasingly integrated into value chains, how can scholars and development practitioners ensure that the benefits of participation accrue equitably to both women and men? This was the topic of a workshop hosted by Bioversity International and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) at the recent Tropentag 2017 conference.

The workshop centered around insights resulting from the testing of 5Capitals-G, a gender-responsive methodology building on the 5Capitals toolkit for assessing the poverty impacts of value chain development. It addresses the principal gaps identified in existing guides for gender-equitable value chain development. These gaps include limited coverage of the way norms influence gender relations, gender-equitable opportunities in collective enterprises, and how value chain development can effectively transform inequitable gender relations.

For this reason, 5Capitals-G examines gender-differentiated asset endowments at the level of both smallholder households and the collective enterprises they are often linked with, and by identifying gender-based constraints shaped by cultural norms and values.

Read more: Piloting gender-responsive research tool 5Capitals-G in three countries

“We started with an overview of strengths and weaknesses of common guides for gender-equitable value chain development designed by international organizations” said Dietmar Stoian, Senior Scientist for Value Chains and Private Sector Engagement at Bioversity, and a coorganizer of the workshop.

“With these in mind, we presented findings from our recent validation of 5Capitals-G as to how women and men have access to, control, and build assets at household and collective enterprise level. Based on this, we can determine the extent to which asset endowments and asset building are gender equitable and adjust value chain interventions accordingly.”

Assessing the poverty impacts of value chain development

Addressing the principal gaps identified in existing guides for gender-equitable value chain development, Bioversity International and ICRAF have joined forces to strengthen the gender dimension of 5Capitals. This new version of the methodology allows for the establishment of gender-responsive baselines and the assessment of gender-differentiated impacts of value chain development among smallholders and other resource-poor groups involved in value chains.

“Two interrelated ideas underpin the design of 5Capitals-G: the poor’s access to assets is a critical entry point for their effective participation in value chains, and the poor’s capacity to build assets through value chain engagement can provide a viable pathway out of poverty,” explained Jason Donovan, Leader for Value Chains and Transformational Change at ICRAF.

5Capitals-G provides insight into what assets are available in households and collective enterprises, which of these are more controlled by men or women, and which are managed jointly. We are particularly interested in understanding positive feedback loops between asset building at household and asset building at enterprise level.”

Insights from Asia and Latin America

5Capitals-G has been tested across diverse settings in Guatemala, India and Peru, providing valuable insights for improving the design of the tool and guidance for the interpretation of results. These adjustments ensure that practioners will be able to count on a validated methodology for enhancing the design, implementation and assessment of gender-equitable value chain development initiatives.

Panelists at the workshop on gender equitable value chains held at Tropentag 2017 included Ana Maria Paez-Valencia (left to right), Trent Blare, Jason Donovan, Dietmar Stoian, Gennifer Meldrum and Hugo Lamers. Photo by Susan Onyango/ICRAF

Hugo Lamers, Associate Scientist in Socioeconomics and Marketing at Bioversity International, used the methodology in the value chains of non-timber forest products such as mango, murugulu (Garcinia indica) and uppage (Garcinia gummigatta) in Karnataka, India.

“Besides taking care of domestic activities, women contributed substantially to income generation through wage labour, farming and collection of forest products,” said Lamers. “We learned that the major bottleneck for women’s participation in local cooperatives is the rule of ‘one member per household’, resulting in a largely male-dominated member base of most cooperatives.”

Gennifer Meldrum, Research Fellow in Nutrition, Marketing and Diversity at Bioversity International, tested the methodology with local partners in millet value chains in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, India.

“The collective enterprise we studied has contributed to asset building across all the five capitals. Women’s participation in cooperative leadership and millet value chain activities are strongly encouraged by the Federation,” she said. “However, a male bias remains due to women’s limitations in terms of time and mobility. Physical assets households have acquired through value chain participation are very rarely controlled by women alone, but often benefit the household as a whole.”

Read more: Gender and forestry gain increasing attention worldwide

Further testing of 5Capitals-G was done in the cocoa value chain in Peru. “In addition to the important role women play in the production of cocoa, we were surprised to discover the strong influence they had in production and marketing decisions,” said Trent Blair, Markets and Value Chain Specialist at ICRAF.

“We realized that a stronger role of women in cocoa and other value chains in Peru is hampered by their limited access to information, technical assistance and training. This requires specific efforts for targeted value chain development interventions to ensure equitable capacity development.”

Interviewing smallholder households in Peru. Photo by Trent Blare/ICRAF

Stoian, together with local partners in Petén, Guatemala, tested 5Capitals-G in value chains of valuable woods including mahogany and tropical walnut, and non-timber forest products such as Chamaedorea palm and Maya nut (Brosimum alicastrum).

“We found evidence that under given conditions income derived from forest products can help people move out of poverty. In terms of reinvestment of forest-based income we learned that decision making at household level was rather equitable with regard to building human and social capitals, while investment decisions on natural, physical and financial capitals were more skewed toward men,” he shared.

“At the level of community forest enterprises, women have recently assumed stronger roles in production and decision making, particularly as regards non-timber forest products, but timber activities and related decisions continue to be largely a male domain.”

Implications for gender-equitable value chain development

“Gender dimensions of access to and control over assets and other resources have an important impact on the opportunities and constraints that women and men face when participating in value chain development initiatives,” said Ana María Paez Valencia, Gender Social Scientist at ICRAF, who moderated the workshop.

In synthesizing the discussion, she pointed out that differential access and control over assets has implications on women’s bargaining position within households to make strategic household and life decisions, as well as their ability to assume new roles or opportunities resulting from value chain initiatives.

“Looking forward, it would be interesting to use 5Capitals-G for insights into the impact of the gender asset gap on household livelihood outcomes in the context of value chain development; and to better understand the trade-offs between increased value chain engagement of women and the time they invest in other activities including those related to household care,” she added.

Outlook 

Participants at the workshop expressed interest in 5Capitals-G, which will be available in early 2018, along with the documented findings of the case studies. As Stoian and Donovan summarized at the end of the workshop: “5Capitals-G will be a key methodology for all practitioners interested in asset-based approaches to value chain development with a gender lens.”

By Susan Onyango, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World


This work was supported by the CGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and CGIAR Research Programs Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), which are supported by CGIAR Fund Donors

Bioversity International and ICRAF thank Lutheran World Relief, Rainforest Alliance and USAID for funding this work. 


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