Strengthening the tenure security of forest communities in the Maya Biosphere Reserve of Petén and scaling up lessons learned in Guatemala and internationally

Project Overview

ACOFOP has received extensive international recognition as one of the most sophisticated processes of community forest management in the world. It is a living example of how community rights can achieve both sustainability and development targets by forming alliances with the government, and how community forest control and management can secure environmental outcomes.   

Currently, the forest management concession contracts issued by the government to the ACOFOP community organisations are limited to a 25-year period, placing the future sustainability and development of the communities at risk. 

In response to this issue, the project aims to secure and sustain community rights to about 500,000 hectares of highly biodiverse tropical forest. It has supported the renewal of community forest concessions, the creation of new community concessions and forest management areas, the resolution of problems in suspended community concessions, and the legal defence of agroforests managed by cooperatives. It is addressing rights to community tourism and forest carbon, strengthening communal governance structures and the increasing the meaningful participation of women and youth within them.  

The project is also supporting ACOFOP’s strategy towards longer term tenure security helping strengthen the agency of its community organisation members and building greater social cohesion within and among communities. Finally, the project is also supporting ACOFOP’s programme of national and international exchanges, designed to share the lessons of its community forestry model in Peten more broadly.