Community-based, sustainable forest management creates healthier forests that are less susceptible to wildfires and less likely to be cut down by locales.
That’s the conclusion of a recent Rainforest Alliance (RA) study conducted in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, which compared the health of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forests with completely protected forests.
For many years, NGOs such as Rainforest Alliance and Conservation International have been preserving forests by giving communities an economic stake in their preservation. The theory is when locales can make a living by preserving forests they are less likely to clear the land for cattle grazing, farming and other less sustainable activities.
RA’s study shows the strategy is successful. From 2002-2007, the average annual deforestation rate for the entire reserve was 20 times higher than the deforestation rate for the FSC-certified concessions. Since 1998 the incidence of wildfires in the Reserve has ranged from 7-20%, while wildfires on FSC-certified concessions have steadily dropped from 6.5% in 1998 to 0.1% in 2007.
"Nearly two decades ago, the Rainforest Alliance pioneered the strategy of using market forces to conserve forests knowing that economic incentives are key to protecting biodiversity and curbing deforestation," says Tensie Whelan, president of the Rainforest Alliance. "These findings confirm that communities will indeed manage their land responsibly rather than destroy it if it makes economic sense to do so. In this case, that incentive is a market for responsibly harvested timber and non-timber forest products."
The government of Guatemala created the Maya Biosphere Reserve on about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of land in 1990. The reserve is rich in biodiversity and home to hundreds of species of animals including jaguars, brocket deer, scarlet macaws and ocellated turkeys.
While some environmentalists called for logging to be banned in the entire reserve, the government classified only about 40% of the area as protected. As of late 2007, about 25% of the total Reserve is FSC-certified. It turns out that allowing for sustainable forest management actually increases the likelihood of long-term protection of forest cover. If current rates of deforestation continue, the Reserve will lose 38% of its 1986 forest cover by 2050, with most of that loss in "protected" areas.
The Rainforest Alliance has been working in the reserve for over 11 years, training communities in responsible forest management, building local community forest enterprises and connecting their FSC-certified products to international markets.
Communities are seeing their businesses grow and livelihoods improve as demand for certified wood and non-timber forest products grows. In 2007, the forest products sector in the region supported about 2,500 jobs and sales of FSC-certified timber surpassed $5 million. Gibson Musical Instruments, for example, buys certified wood to use in guitars, and Texas-based Continental Floral Greens buys xate palms for floral arrangements that are also sold to churches in the US for Palm Sunday.
"These numbers show that certification is a real tool for the market and for conservation," says Josi Roman Carrera, Central America coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance’s TREES program, which works with communities in the area. "FSC certification has helped strengthen business structures, fire prevention measures and low-impact harvesting practices."
To meet certification standards, forestry communities and companies in the reserve have created fire control and prevention plans, improved living and working conditions for workers, increased the use of safety equipment, experienced less social conflict as a result of better land-use mapping, and created committees to manage land-use, among other things.
FSC certification requires third-party auditing to international standards that promote responsible forestry practices and community participation. The standards incorporate the rights of indigenous groups and workers, biodiversity conservation, the protection of high conservation value forests and a range of other environmental, social and economic criteria.
There are many players that have contributed to the success of the FSC-certified areas in maintaining forest cover: local communities including the Association of Forest Communities of Petin (ACOFOP), donors including the United States Agency for International Development, non-governmental organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, Guatemala’s National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP), the Community Forestry Concessions Enterprise (FORESCOM), and companies and consumers that buy certified forest products and provide a market for sustainably produced goods.
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http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/forestry/documents/peten_study.pdf
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