Biosphere is flashpoint for tourism debate

Community concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve are conditioned on compliance with forest-management standards of the Forest Stewardship Council, a respected green seal. (Photo by Aldo Rodas)

A program under which forest concession holders—mostly local community cooperatives and associations—manage nearly 1.23 million acres (500,000 hectares) of Guatemalan rainforest has won international applause over the years, thanks to its contributions to local livelihoods and woodland conservation. From 1994 to 2002, fourteen of the 25-year concessions were granted in the prized Guatemalan reserve, which is part of the Maya Forest that Guatemala shares with Belize and Mexico—after the Amazon, the largest tropical rainforest in the Americas. Twelve went to community cooperatives and two to private companies, with all of them required to be certified under the sustainable management standards of the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), one of the world’s most rigorous forest-management green seals. But some experts warn that the program, launched in 1994 as part of a peace process that ended three decades of civil war in Guatemala, might be undermined by... Read more →