Replanting Power

Community Forest Management in Guatemala and México

by Beaujena Stoyanchev edited by Guillermo Bichara Guzman and Sarah Lopez

FForests provide a number of invaluable ecosystem services that maintain cleaner air and water, provide medicinal and fuel materials for surrounding communities, and are among the most important hosts to global biodiversity. 1 Alongside their services to local communities, forests are a part of a global system of carbon sequestration and forest conservation that represents the cheapest strategy towards mitigating climate change in many countries—particularly developing countries around the world. 2 Despite their invaluable services, deforestation and degradation rates persist. Globally, approximately five million hectares of forest are lost annually to human activity. 3 With approximately 30 percent of global carbon emissions stemming from landuse change and deforestation, global conservation efforts seek to reverse the trend of rapid degradation and promote sustainable practices in communities. 4

The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) promises to “prevent, halt, and reverse” the degradation of our ecosystems, recognizing that we could have “nine years left” to save our planet from permanent damage as a result of extensive climate and ecosystem degradation. 5 The UN’s #GenerationRestoration project calls upon our “Action, Choices, and Voices,” focusing on changing the behavior of individuals and our contributions to reducing our contributions to climate change. 6 Other frameworks—such as the

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Reduced Emissions in Deforestation and Degradation Framework (REDD+)—seek to incentivize forest regeneration and protection through results-based financing. While these frameworks seek to address present and prevent future degradation through a variety of financial incentives and policy shifts, global conservation strategies have failed to address underlying structural inequalities that affect the ecological conditions of communities. As a result, global conservation strategy has failed to produce sustainable results on a broad scale.

In Latin America, environmental conditions and policies are directly correlated with the social and political landscape of the region. Lasting colonial legacies and structural imbalances regarding land distribution and control of natural resources continue to leave rural and Indigenous communities vulnerable to inadequate conservation policy. 7 As such, successfully proposed solutions regarding forest conservation and restoration in Latin America require a comprehensive understanding of where power lies, who takes part in crafting solutions, and how the solution will be implemented. In Guatemala and México, however, a conservation model that has seen the most profound success has undeniably been Community Forest Management (CFM). Exploring cases of its implementation in Guatemala and México demonstrates CFM’s strength against other methods of conservation in its support of a holistic conservation model that elevates community voices and maximizes national and international resources.

In the last decade, the value of forests and their importance towards fighting climate change has been officially worked into the UNFCCC Paris Climate Agreement. The emergence of the Warsaw REDD+ Framework in 2009 reveals the recognition of forests, particularly tropical rainforests, as crucial tools of sequestration and development. 8 The framework was designed to provide financial incentives to developing countries to conserve and restore their forested areas as well as disincentivize deforestation. The framework creates pathways of payments in exchange for proof of results—that is, a nation that sees a decrease in forest-based emissions will receive financial compensation and the ability to place these carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. 9

Frameworks such as REDD+ seek to strike the crucial balance with sustainable development, economically empowering a nation while promoting a sustainable model of ecosystem protection. However, results from the last decade of its implementation have produced a variety of unintended negative results and, in turn, isolated the very communities it was designed to uplift. Indeed, a key criticism of initiatives like REDD+ and other UNFCCC prescribed solutions is that in practice the implementation of these initiatives can require a large level of government intervention to an extent that overpowers community voices and needs. 10 Frameworks like REDD+ successfully use financial incentives to incentivize governments and under-resourced communities to restore their forests; however, an unintentional side effect is the potential over-involvement of the state, leaving communities excluded from decision-making. In certain cases, proposed top-down solutions can overlook the complex networks of power, asymmetrical resource governance, or alreadyestablished forms of management. In its attempt to create sustainable change, these solutions perpetuate established inequalities rather than guarantee that communities reap project benefits. 11

Conservation frameworks like REDD+ recognize the financial and ecological benefits of forests and seek to create mutual benefit for communities through forest conservation and regeneration. However, this mode of incentivizing conservation through the lens of economic development can lead to a disconnect between state interests in forest conservation and the forest’s significance to its inhabitants and surrounding communities. 12 Often under-recognized in the context of global conservation strategy, forests hold a cultural and spiritual significance for many—especially Indigenous communities, as their relationship with the specific land they live on is crucial to their cultural identity and community survival. The intricate relationship between communities and their natural surroundings can be better leveraged in the context of sustainable development and conservation in the form of Community Forest Management (CFM). Community Forest Management is a form of “collective governance of a common territory or property” where decisions regarding forest monitoring, usage, and natural resource management lie in communities. 13 Through CFM, communities will “manage their territories in a way that ensures the conservation and sustainable use of nature alongside the social, environmental, cultural, and even economic benefits.” 14 The framework is flexible and takes on a unique form depending on the social, political, and cultural context of the community. In some cases, it can uplift pre-colonial traditions of land management, and in others it creates new pathways towards power and governance through the granted access to community land and resources. For states like México and Guatemala, Community Forest Management has come to define a method of regaining power and stewardship over natural resources and land that has long been manipulated by government intervention. Communities build the capacity to be able care for land through ancestral knowledge, driven by a need for the resources within the land and connection to the land, and as a result create new understandings of what “sustainable development” can really mean. A core benefit to community-led conservation is its ability to adapt based on the political, cultural, and historical context of a community’s needs. In Guatemala’s Totonicapán Department specifically, community forest management is a way of life, embedded in the cultural fabric of the Maya K’iche community which inhabits the forest and has managed it for over eight centuries. Further north, in México, communities have adopted the framework over the last century after a historical protest for agency over their own land, and have utilized it as a method of economic empowerment. Across these varying implementations of the model, however, is the notion that humans are an integral component to their natural environments, and that removing people in the name of conservation only promotes a deeper disassociation from our role in environmental protection.

Historically, conservation solutions can be oriented to separate people from nature, and hone in on the negative impacts of human activity on environmental communities. It emphasizes that threats to the environment are humancaused; thus, humans must be removed, or their presence lessened, in order to protect the natural environment. Across Central America, this logical framework has provoked the state-led removal of Indigenous and rural communities from their ancestral lands, where the coexistence of people and nature forms a crucial component of their cultural identity. 15 In this context, Community Forest Management seeks to leverage human-led solutions, transforming extractive perspectives of land to one of mutual benefit.

For Guatemala and México, forests have become a symbol of ongoing struggle for community autonomy and control over natural resources that has produced powerful protests and shifts in land rights and policies over the last century. 16 Indeed, in Guatemala “the contestation and negotiation of conservation policies has been a key context through which Maya autonomy, cultural identity, and traditions of environmental stewardship were articulated” over the course of the last century. Forests cover 33 percent of Guatemalan land, and the nation's very name translates to “the place of many trees” in the Nahuatl language. 17 One of the nation’s most prominent forest reserves is the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a community-managed area of over four hundred and fifty thousand hectares. 18 It is noted as one of the world’s most successful community forest experiments. Communities were granted communal ownership after a two-decade long struggle for rights to the land between the state and the inhabitants of a forest that the state sought to create into an untouched reserve. 19 Now, the communal forests maintain the lowest rates of wildfire and deforestation in the forest reserve while also providing employment opportunities for local community members through sustainable timber extraction.

Likewise, México has been a global pioneer in Community Forest Management. Over two thousand land holdings are in the hands of communities, known as ejidos, where a historical fight for land rights now leaves 18.2 million hectares of forest under community management. 20 CFM in México originates from a community response to the state-permitted logging and extraction in forests across México throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. States across México—for example, in Sierra Juárez de Oaxaca—organized in fierce protest until rights were temporarily transferred to Indigenous and rural communities. 21 Furthermore, CFM in Mèxico represents an established, technically-advanced example of the practice when it is properly supported with technical and financial assistance from the state and local organizations.

Beginning in the 1950s, a state-sponsored paper company was rapidly cutting down trees in the region, provoking local communities to organize in protest. The afflicted communities organized in protest and made a number of constitutional appeals to halt the government concession to the company and achieve official recognition of their territory. 22 The success of this movement created the conditions for a successful implementation of CFM. The government took a temporarily ‘hands-off’ approach, believing the communities would fail this experiment of communal management. 23 When the state saw success in the structured models of community organizing, where forest lands were managed via traditional networks of community assemblies and were additionally advised by forest management specialists, they supplemented the community frameworks with new programs such as the Forest Resources Conservation and Sustainable Management Project (PROCYMAF). México’s experience with Community Forest Management demonstrates how the framework offers opportunity for political empowerment and economic opportunity.

Within this conservation model, sustainable management also involves an active timber industry, managed by community members at various scales. 24 Through this, CFM restores a relationship with the land that allows populations to take what they need and take care of what they leave. Indeed, expert David B. Bray notes that “in these communities, both a culture of industrial forestry and a culture of forest conservation have become part of the traditional culture.” 25 CFM incorporates careful monitoring of the forest to ensure that trees being cut down for sale still leave a stable amount to sustain the ecosystem.

An example of Community Forest Management as a cultural, and spiritual practice alongside a tool of economic and political empowerment can be found in the department of Totonicapan, Guatemala. Located in the Western Highlands, the Totonicapán forest spans twenty-one thousand hectares in Western Guatemala and sustains over one hundred and fifty thousand people. 26 For centuries, the Maya K’iche populations that inhabit the area have cared for the forest and sustained themselves through an intricate resource management system. They are guided by an Indigenous worldview known as the Mayan Cosmovision. For Indigenous Meso-Americans, it is a view “that integrates the structure of space and rhythms of time into a unified whole.” 27 Rather than considering humans separate from their natural environment, it emphasizes humans as a part of nature, and thus plays a crucial role in taking care of it.

The 48 Cantones is the traditional governing body in Totonicapán that has been serving local communities for over eight hundred years. The core component of Totonicapán’s management is its practice of K’ax K’ol, a cycle of unpaid community service which all community members are obligated to fulfill. While serving K’ax K’ol, the service delegates will continue monitoring the forest through regular patrolling, maintain its land and regenerate depleted areas where necessary. 28 The specific area it manages is known as the Communal Forest of Los Altos de San Miguel or Kachelaj in K’iche, and the regional municipal park (RMP) Los Altos de San Miguel in Totonicapán, is amongst the largest communal landholding in the highlands. 29 The park was created in 1997 in collaboration with state agencies, local municipal politicians, NGOs and local representatives with the intention of providing opportunities for communal ownership, though designated boundaries often remain overlapping and contested, with ongoing pressures for the privatization of water resources and other services offered by the forest. 30

In general, the cultural values and established systems of management in Totonciapán make the region resistant to frameworks like REDD+ or other global initiatives to incentivize conservation. However, the community forest framework can legitimize community voices in interactions with municipal and state government interactions and prevent their needs from being overlooked. A sustainable framework to support the implementation of CFM recognizes the need for the balance between broad-based institutional support from international institutions, government structures, and NGOs who can support the implementation and sustain the success of these communities by providing resources and aid where necessary. 31 A core force of empowerment within CFM is how it allows communities–who have the highest knowledge and understanding of their land–to advocate for their specific needs within this context.

In general, the cultural values and established systems of management in Totonciapán make the region resistant to frameworks like REDD+ or other global initiatives to incentivize conservation. However, the community forest framework can legitimize community voices in interactions with municipal and state government interactions and prevent their needs from being overlooked. A sustainable framework to support the implementation of CFM recognizes the need for the balance between broad-based institutional support from international institutions, government structures, and NGOs who can support the implementation and sustain the success of these communities by providing resources and aid where necessary. A core force of empowerment within CFM is how it allows communities–who have the highest knowledge and understanding of their land–to advocate for their specific needs within this context.

Local and non-state organizations can step in to support communities with supplementary financial and technical assistance, so long as it remains on the community’s terms. For example, the EcoLogic Development Fund works to enhance local community capacity through increased access to technologies and expertise while simultaneously elevating community voices. EcoLogic is a U.S.based NGO with a regional office in Guatemala’s Quiché department. As a small non-state organization, EcoLogic functions within a network of actors, such as the local municipal government and the paralleled Indigenous governance, while being inevitably influenced by national policy to a certain degree. However the community and its needs are at the center of the decision-making process.

In Totonicapán, EcoLogic supports efforts to restore depleted forest areas. Working with ninetyfive communities in the department, EcoLogic has supported the restoration of 537 hectares, with 1,363,010 trees planted for reforestation purposes. 32 While the community structure and cultural practice remain in place, EcoLogic is able to supplement with technical assistance that further builds the capacities of communities to operate without wholly relying on the government. The decentralized power structure evolving in Totonicapán represents a compromise between independent community management and supplementary technical and financial assistance that is on the community’s terms.

Far beyond recognizing the material value of the forest and its contributions to mitigation, CFM brings new meaning to the notion of “sustainability.” The model recognizes that each community will have different priorities, practices, and needs based on cultural specificities and the varied terrain they are protecting. It encourages a sustainable development model that supports solutions and conservation strategies, rather than prescribing them in a top-down model. Investing in community empowerment creates a network of collaboration, active participation, and support that can be seen and felt on a broad scale. It is a solution that redistributes aspects of that centralized power to individuals and individual communities, who both know their land better and, in the process of monitoring their land, will learn their land better. Communities become active participants in the maintenance and protection of their ecosystems while sustaining the integrity of the natural space. Likewise, CFM embeds the cultural and spiritual significance of the forest into the solution, restoring an ancient relationship with the land that had long been interrupted by outside influences and intentions. Most importantly, CFM can take a different form in each community it approaches, allowing climate solutions to emerge from the minds and hearts of the communities who know their land and their needs best.

References

1Frances Seymour and Jonah Busch, “Why Forests? Why Now? The Science, Economics, and Politics of Tropical Forests and Climate Change” (Washington DC: Center for Global Development, 2016), 7, accessed 5 October, 2022, https:// tinyurl.com/yc4926at.

2 Ibid.

3 Amy Collins, “How community forest management performs where REDD+ payments fails,” Environmental Research Letters no. 3, 17 (2022): 1, https://iopscience.iop.org/ article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4b54/pdf.

4 EcoLogic Development Fund, “Climate Change,”accessed 30 October, 2022. https://www.ecologic.org/our-impact/ challenges/climate-change.

5 United Nations Environment Programme, “Preventing, Halting, and Reversing the Degradation of Ecosystems Worldwide,” accessed 20 September, 2022, https://www. decadeonrestoration.org/.

6 United Nations Environment Programme, “Ecosystem Restoration Playbook: A Practical Guide to Healing the Planet,” accessed 20 September, 2022, https://www.decadeonrestoration. org/publications/ecosystem-restoration-playbook-practicalguide-healing-planet.

7 Tracey Osborne, Samara Brock, Robin Chazdon, et al. “The political ecology playbook for ecosystem restoration: Principles for effective, equitable, and transformative landscapes,” Global Environmental Change, no. 70 (2021): 2. doi:10.1016/j. gloenvcha.2021.102320.

8 United Nations Climate Change, “What is REDD+?” UNFCCC, accessed 20 September, 2022, https://unfccc.int/ topics/land-use/workstreams/redd/what-is-redd.

9 Micah L. Ingalls, Michael B. Dwyer, “Missing the Forest for the Trees? Navigating the trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation under REDD,” Climatic Change 136, (2016): 354. https://tinyurl.com/ycxk3h55.

10 Osborne et al. “The Political Ecology Playbook,” 7.

11 Tracey Osborne, Samara Brock, Robin Chazdon, et al. “The political ecology playbook for ecosystem restoration: Principles for effective, equitable, and transformative landscapes,” Global Environmental Change, no. 70 (2021): page number. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102320.

12 Ingalls et all, “Missing the Forest for the Trees?,” 360.

13 David Barton Bray, “The Community Forests of Mexico : Managing for Sustainable Landscapes” (University of Texas Press, 2005), 4, accessed October 16, 2022 http://ebookcentral. proquest.com/lib/bu/detail.action?docID=3443010.

14 Javier Baltodano, “Community Forest Management (CFM): An Opportunity to Preserver and Restore Vital Resources for the Good Living of Human Societies,” Friends of the Earth International, September, 2015, accessed September 20, 2022 https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ Community-forest-management_an-Opportunity_EN.pdf.

15 “48 Cantones” directed by Thomas and Julian Moll-Rocek (2014; Daily Motion, 2014), https://tinyurl.com/yjhufn32.

16 Brian W. Conz, ‘Conservation and Maya Autonomy: The Case of Totonicapán’. In “Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas: New Perspectives on Conservation and Rights” Stan Stevens, editor. (Tuscon, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 2014), 242, accessed 20 October, 2022.

17 René Zamora-Cristales et al, “7 Ways Governments Can Invest in Farmer-led Land Restoration,” World Resource Institute, 8 February, 2022, accessed 16 October, 2022, https:// bit.ly/3FwchHN.

18 Ibid.

19 Fred Pearce, “Parks vs. People: In Guatemala, Communities Take Best Care of the Forest,” Yale Environment 360, Yale School of the Environment, 18 June, 2020, https://bit. ly/3DQa7lh.

20 Thelma Gómez Durán,“Mexico: Community forestry boosts conservation, jobs, and social benefits,” trans. Sydney Sims, Mongabay, 22 January 2020. https://tinyurl.com/mw9zxkvn. 21 Ibid.

22 David, Bray, “Sierra Norte de Oaxaca: el manejo forestal comunitario,” La Jornada, 30 September, 2018, accessed 20 October, 2022. https://www.jornada.com.mx/2018/09/30/ opinion/016a1pol.

23 Gómez Durán,“Mexico: Community Forestry,” https:// tinyurl.com/mw9zxkvn.

24 Bray, “Sierra Norte.”

25 Ibid.

26 EcoLogic Development Fund “What We Do: Totonicapán,” accessed 30 October, 2022 https://www.ecologic.org/what-wedo/projects/totonicapan.

27 Moll-Rocek, “48 Cantones.”

28 Julian Moll-Rocek, “Challenging the ‘tragedy of the commons:’ new documentary explores how humans and nature can coexist,” Mongabay, 20 August, 2014, https://bit. ly/3Wo9I0o.

29 Conz, ‘Conservation and Maya Autonomy: The Case of Totonicapán,’ 243. 30 Ibid.

31 Osborne et al. “The Political Ecology Playbook,” 4. 32 EcoLogic, “Totonicapán,” https://www.ecologic.org/whatwe-do/projects/totonicapan.