Strengthening tenure security for forest communities in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Petén, Guatemala
Ongoing
From:
01/09/2022
To:
01/09/2024
Budget:
$2,000,000
Partners:
Asociación de Comunidades Forestales del Petén (ACOFOP)
Stakeholders:
5,012 families from 55 communities with multiplier effects on the sustainable forest economy
The potential national impact of restructuring the ANOFCG is estimated to reach 77,000 families as possible beneficiaries if the project manages to promote the issue of rights beyond the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
At the international level, this program would be a contributing factor to the impact on large populations, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities in the Amazon, Mexico, and Central America, and possibly Indonesia or the Congo basin. Here we estimate the potential impact, as a conservative figure, in several hundred thousand.
To read a brief overview of Guatemala, click here.
For a timeline of land and forest rights in Guatemala, click here.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
This project aims to secure and sustain community rights to about 500,000 hectares of highly biodiverse tropical forest. It will support the renewal of community forest concessions, creation of new community concessions, and resolution of problems in cooperatives and in suspended concessions. It will address rights related to community tourism and forest carbon. It will strengthen communal governance structures and the participation of women and youth within them.It also supportsintACOFOP’s strategy towards longer term tenure security helping strengthen the agency of its community organization members, and building greater social cohesion within and among communities, including women and youth. The project will also support ACOFOP’s programme of national and international exchanges, designed to share the lessons of its community forestry model in Peten more broadly. .
ACOFOP has received extensive international recognition as one of the most sophisticated processes of community forest management in the world. It is aliving example of the potential for community rights to simultaneously achieve sustainability and development targets, through an alliance with the government. However, the forest management concession contracts issued by the government to the community organizations are limited to a 25 year period, placing the future sustainability and development of the communities at risk.
GOAL
To consolidate tenure security for ACOFOP community member organizations by extending and expanding community concession contracts, and additionally exploring the development of a legal strategy to replace the current model of non-renewable and limited duration forest concession contracts. It also aims to strengthen community governance and social cohesion and to scale up impact at the local, national and international levels through exchanges and effective strategic communication.
OBJECTIVES
- Consolidating the forest rights and land tenure of ACOFOP members
- Strengthening and revitalizing the wider community movement
- Defending more integrated community rights to include tourism and carbon, and expanding the inclusion of women and youth
- Scaling up rights and community forest management through national and international exchanges
- Strengthening strategic communications
- Elevate ACOFOP’s profile and messages to strengthen alliances and the ACOFOP agenda at the national level, and national and international alliances
ACTIONS
- Construction of a new form of tenure and positioning of the instrument with political dialogue
- Strengthening ACOFOP for the defense of rights, in particular the Cooperatives
- Extend and re-establish community concessions and promote new concessions
- Capacity strengthening based on community assemblies
- Consolidation of platforms for the inclusion of women and youth
Impact
Support of 5,012 families from 55 communities with multiplier effects on the sustainable forest economy. The indirect impacts of the support for these families are estimated to reach 100,000 people; however, the population benefited by maintaining the Maya Biosphere Reserve forest intact could also be included.
