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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
DIALOGUE
In this section:
Mission of the Month: Guatemala
Notes from Natsios
Mission of the Month: Guatemala
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A technician with a map produced by a global positioning
system tries to locate trees that are ready to be cut
under a sustainable forest management arrangement in
the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
USAID/Guatemala |
Challenge
Guatemala, a Central American nation slightly smaller than
Tennessee, is a land rich in Mayan ruins and vast forests.
With a gross domestic product of $26.7 billion and a population
of 12.6 million people, Guatemala has the largest economy
in Central America and is the most populous country in the
region.
El Petén, the northernmost region that covers nearly
13,000 square miles and accounts for one-third of the country’s
area, is of particular significance. As the heartland of the
Maya culture during its height around 750 BC, the forest-rich
region was home to several million people, making it one of
the most densely populated regions of the world at the time.
Today, much of the region is covered by an environmental
protection law. But farmers seeking an escape from rural poverty
and degraded agricultural land continue migrating to and settling
in the protected woodlands. Trees are being cut and entire
biocultures surrounding archeological sites are dying.
Innovative Response
USAID started looking at the problems in El Petén in
1990, when the Guatemalan government created the Maya Biosphere
Reserve and the country was still undergoing a civil war,
which ended in 1996. Since then, the Agency has invested $38.6
million in the reserve, with approximately $8 million going
toward a program that preserves the forest and helps farmers
living in the area make a living legally through the forestry
community concessions.
The first step, taken in conjunction with the National Council
of Protected Areas, was to create the forestry concessions
concept, which defined how farmers could use the forest in
a sustainable way. In 1996 the concessions were approved,
and, over the next couple of years, USAID worked with local
authorities on drafting rules that would limit migration but
also allow residents some use of forest lands.
Within the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a multiple-use zone was
established, where people could harvest a certain number of
trees per year and promote natural regeneration of the forest.
There are 12 legal community forestry concessions in the multiple-use
zone in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Two industrial concessions
were given to private Guatemalan corporations.
USAID helped the communities form associations and link
with local nongovernmental organizations, which showed residents
how to manage the forest. People also learned how to better
manage their community finances so they could improve their
quality of life through access to health and education services.
USAID also helped the forestry concessions create the Community
Forestry Concessions Enterprise (FORESCOM) to market their
timber and nontimber products and to obtain group certification
for their wood.
The communities now have trained some of their members to
patrol the forest and report any illegal activities to the
authorities. Firefighters have also been trained in abating
forest fires.
“Most immigrants to El Petén settle on the forest
land to farm and move on after a few years, in search of better
soil, when the land becomes unproductive,” said Liliana
Gil of USAID/Guatemala. “But we’ve taught communities
all the techniques necessary to sustainably manage the forest.
We’ve provided technical assistance in managing the forest,
business administration, organization, enterprise skills,
and harvesting.”
Through the Global Development Alliance (GDA) Secretariat,
in 2004 USAID began helping reserve residents develop and
sell timber products with added value. Communities were provided
with equipment and taught about the kinds of timber products
that foreign companies might buy.
Results
Migration within the Maya Biosphere Reserve has slowed down,
as its residents have found a way to make a living while preserving
the land.
Wood cutting is a certified process, and legally cut timber
is sold to numerous large companies worldwide. Companies such
as Global Building Products and American Wood Products—through
the GDA project—are placing orders for milled lumber,
flooring, decking, tool components, and guitar parts.
A March 2005 roundtable of sellers and buyers resulted in
orders for more than 1.5 million board feet of certified wood
with an approximate value of $3 million.
The work in El Petén has provided direct economic
benefit to over 10,000 people and indirectly benefited another
50,000, Gil estimates.
“They are seeing now that there’s a social benefit
with the management of the forest,” she said. “They
used to slash and burn. Now they know when to do the cutting,
and they’ve learned the cycle of planting trees—when
to cut, and how to cut and not destroy the tree.”
Instances of illegal hunting, logging, land invasions, and
forest fires have decreased, according to the World Wildlife
Conservation Society, which monitors the area. Endangered
species are not further decreasing in numbers.
Nicaragua, Venezuela, Belize, and Panama are interested
in replicating the forestry concessions model, and have hired
technicians working in El Petén to provide technical
assistance.
“People still try to create illegal settlements inside
or next to the concession areas, but communities go to the
authorities,” Gil said. “Our model was to prove
that if you allowed the community to manage its own resources
and see the economic value of the forest, they would protect
it and not allow illegal activities. We’ve done that.”
Notes from Natsios
Our Innovative Assistance
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Andrew Natsios
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The earthquake Oct. 8 in Pakistan has caused widespread suffering,
and our Agency is rushing to assist the survivors in innovative
ways that involve more than moving commodities around.
The first principle of emergency response is to restore
people’s coping mechanisms to provide for themselves.
About 112,000 tents have been distributed, and another 200,000
are about to arrive. However, that leaves a gap of 88,000
tents.
So we will look to see how many remaining homes have at
least one room still capable of being lived in—to make
sure there is one warm room. If it means repairing the roof
to get through the winter, then that is what we will do. People
like to stay near their homes and their property after a natural
disaster. There is a fear among the people in these villages
that if they leave they will lose their land, given the issues
over land tenure in Pakistan. And we need to respect the values
of the community.
Second, in emergencies, particularly natural disasters,
people move in with their extended families in housing units
that may be intact—in a neighboring village, in a neighboring
city, in the lowland areas—and so we will provide vouchers
redeemable on local markets to extended families who take
in relatives and need extra food or bedding material. And
we will encourage people to take people in who are not family
members by providing cash or vouchers.
The third option is to use communal facilities for shelter—market
buildings, private businesses, town and city halls—to
get people through winter. Tents may not be adequate.
The other thing we are going to try to do with other donors,
the NGOs, and the Pakistani government is to begin to get
people back to work by providing daily wages for the breadwinners
to begin the cleanup operation. These mass employment programs
will allow us to begin to clear the rubble away, to facilitate
the reconstruction process, but also, primarily, to increase
family incomes because these families now don’t have
income.
And the final thing we are doing is—rather than importing
relief goods from the outside—is giving vouchers to people
to use in local markets for approved commodities, such as
bedding materials, blankets, pots, heating equipment, and
silverware. This will help rebuild the local economy and revive
markets.
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