In Guatemala's Maya biosphere reserve (MBR), a huge harvester crashes into the open, dragging a 15-metre trunk of mahogany. This is sustainable forestry at its most brutal, yet silence will return in weeks, and chainsaws won't return for at least four years, as part of a strict management plan bucking the trend of rampant deforestation.
The Maya Biosphere Reserve
The 2.1m-hectare MBR, in northern Petén, was established by the Guatemalan government in 1990 and recognised by Unesco. It now anchors the largest natural forest in Central America, says José Román Carrera, a forestry director at the Rainforest Alliance, who was part of initial discussions to establish the reserve.
The MBR is divided into three zones: a buffer (23%) protects the forest from encroachment; a core (39%) houses national parks and conservation areas; and a multiple-use zone (38%) allows sustainable livelihoods. The multiple-use zone includes 12 community forestry concessions (CFCs), each with 25-year contracts, spanning 400,000 hectares. The first concession was established in 1997 after the civil war, and over 20 years they have been central to ending decades of deforestation.
Green Islands of Near-Zero Deforestation
While the reserve has lost nearly 13% of its natural cover in 24 years, the community concessions have maintained near-zero deforestation, serving as 'green islands', according to the National Council of Protected Areas (Conap).
At the Carmelita cooperative, 30 men live in a temporary camp for three weeks each year, taking just two trees from each of the 1,000 hectares earmarked for harvesting on a rotational basis within the 43,000-hectare concession. Every tree is mapped, logged and numbered, with strict criteria on which can be felled, explains Hedy Godinez Pulido, a forestry engineer. 'The young trees define how many old trees you can cut,' he says.
Before the sustainable plan, says forestry technician Bayron Chub, it was 'chaos'. Private companies selected trees at random by hitting them with a hammer. 'If it sounded damaged, they left it. They cut the easy way … and left huge wasted stumps in the ground. There was no planning.'
FSC Standards and Community Restoration
As part of their contract, concessions must work to strict Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) standards, allowing timber export. FSC staff inspect every stump; any miscalculations result in fines. 'Our fathers taught us to live with the forest without causing damage,' says Chub.
The community of La Pasadita saw strict application of rules. In 2009, Conap suspended the community's contract after discovering illegal logging within the 18,000-hectare concession. Winning back their licence proved a struggle. 'Nobody believed in them [the former concession managers] because they did bad things,' says Walbi Cardona, the out-going president of the village association.
In the past five years, they worked with the Rainforest Alliance through its Prosperous and Resilient Landscape programme to create a plan for restorative production, regaining Conap's trust. The project centres on a community nursery, the largest within the MBR, where more than 120,000 seedlings from 23 species have been nurtured, creating dozens of jobs. The trees restore degraded pastureland, bringing back tree cover and removing wildfire threats.
According to Conap data, there has been a net increase in forest coverage of 105 hectares in La Pasadita. 'Restored forest is coming back at the expense of pasture,' says Carrera proudly. Conap is now looking to use the success to guide a national policy of productive restoration.
Uaxactún and Non-Timber Products
In Uaxactún, forest cover has grown by 113 hectares, according to Conap. This concession covers over 83,000 hectares. Alongside forestry, Uaxactún uses non-timber forest products like xate palm, harvested to strict guidelines and sold to the US for religious ceremonies. Francisco Aldana, vice-president of the village, explains that since they took over managing sales, a trade once worth a few hundred dollars a year now brings in $60,000 annually.
The community is also working with The Nature Conservancy on tourism, including tours of Maya ruins and trekking to El Mirador.
Value-Added Products and Local Employment
At the Carmelita cooperative, president Jesús Barrera prepares the marshalling yard for timber. In the past, they sold trees as rough lumber. Now, with four sawmills and local carpenters, the emphasis is on value-added products. 'Workers used to come from outside, now 95% are local people because we have invested in training. That's a big change,' says Barrera.
The workshops produce planks, furniture, guitar necks, and kits for wooden houses. Reports show household incomes in the concessions are up to three times higher than the national poverty level. The cooperative is projected to make around $3m this year by sustainably targeting a controlled number of trees.
Initially, 80% of the concession was for conservation and 20% for production. Now these figures are reversed, but the forest continues to grow. As Carrera says, 'the forest is best protected by those whose livelihoods depend on it.'
