In 1991, the government of Guatemala created the Maya Biosphere Reserve which would preserve national parks, rivers, trees, and wildlife from deforestation, tourism, or any human activity while designating certain areas for logging, farming, and agriculture. The Guatemalan government granted concessions to 14 communities to manage timber and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for wild harvest, conserve, and manage. Each community member working in these concessions would have to be certified through the Forest Stewards Council (FSC) to properly work with these timber and non-timber products. Together with the government, the residents would be in charge of overseeing the entire Reserve including protecting their natural resources.
This is where Forests, Products and People come in play - integrating conservation and development. This approach provides a framework for addressing the loss of earth’s biodiversity and solving the dilemma of “people versus parks”. Arguably, the parks cannot be protected over the long term without the consent and support of local inhabitants. Therefore, the Maya Biosphere Reserve community forest concessions purposefully link the economic viability of local communities with the conservation of biodiversity.
Forests, Products, and People aim to support the forest communities by creating awareness about the forest products, the place that it’s grown, and the people who are managing it. It provides commercialization and the promotion of NTFPs represents an important strategy for the integration of economic and conservation objectives. The development of markers for these forest products which lead to financial growth, opportunities for forest concession communities to run their own small businesses, improved community resources, and better individual livelihoods for that reserve. It is a proven method that can yield quantifiable results while putting nature back into the hands of communities, and not from outsiders.