Guatemala
Ana is a community leader from the Peten in Guatemala. She worked her way up from preparing food for forestry workers to sustainable forest management near Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve. The communities manage timber, wood processing and carving as well as non-timber products like xate leaf fronds, all spice, and organic chicle gum. Ana is a member of the Association of Forestry Communities in the Petén (ACOFOP) which manages the largest area of sustainably certified tropical community forest on the planet. ACOFOP is a member of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB).
The Community Forest Concessions in the Petén, Guatemala, battle against forest fires and invasions on their land through diverse methods of control including more than one thousand annual fire prevention and monitoring patrols, the use of technologies such as drones and GPS trackers, and the labor-intensive construction of over 450 km of firebreaks. The communities won the […]