The drone of a generator and the snarl of power saws break the silence of northern Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve. A dozen men and adolescent boys are hard at work hauling logs, stripping the bark off them and turning out sawn and sanded hardwood boards that they’ll make into desks and doors.

Time was when unfettered logging took place here. But these members of the Carmelita cooperative, who live in a village within the reserve, are harvesting timber under a concession they were awarded on condition they follow strict forestry standards developed by the Bonn-based Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

The system of locally-managed land concessions in the reserve has been touted as one of the most successful models of tropical forest management in the world. Until recently, the isolated communities that manage the majority of the concessions had lacked the technology and marketing know-how to take full advantage of their forest resources, especially timber. Now, however, communities are seeking ways to add value to their timber and tap international markets, boosting local income and improving lives.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve is Central America’s largest protected area and most biologically diverse expanse of tropical forest and wetland. The reserve comprises some 5 million acres (2 million has) of land, about 40% of which is classified as a multiple-use zone, where some extractive industries and subsistence agriculture are allowed. Forest products harvested in the multiple-use zone include decorative xate palms, allspice, resin for natural gum and timber.

Another 36% of the reserve falls under biotope or national park designation, which technically receives the highest level of protection, while 24% is designated as a buffer area.

Recognizing the need to include local people in reserve management, Guatemala’s National Council of Protected Areas (Conap) began granting forest concessions within the multiple-use zone in 1994. Today, nearly 1.2 million acres (500,000 has) are spread among 11 community concessions and two commercial concessions, managed by local timber industries. The entire concession area is certified in accordance with FSC standards.

Though not without its problems, the concession system has bolstered conservation in the biosphere, experts say. While concession forestland has stayed relatively intact, numerous other parts of the reserve have suffered high rates of deforestation and colonization. (See “Prized Maya Biosphere is under attack”—EcoAméricas, Sept. ’03.)

Over half of Laguna del Tigre National Park, which is located in the reserve, has been set on fire intentionally and taken over by settlers and cattle ranchers in recent years, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, a leading international conservation institution based in New York.

Whether the promising start of the forest concessions leads to long-term success will hinge largely on the ability of local communities to tap the forest’s full economic potential in a sustainable manner. Until recently, the Carmelita cooperative and others had to sell valuable mahogany logs at low prices to local mills because they lacked equipment to process the wood. Nor did the communities have the resources and training to market their timber on the more lucrative international market.

“They are poor and isolated, with few phones and usually nobody who speaks English, so up till now they have sold most of their wood to the people who were able to go to them,” says David Dudenhoefer, communications coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance, a U.S. green group that works with communities in the biosphere. “And not all of those buyers are the most scrupulous, or willing to pay the best prices.”

But there are signs of change. Eight communities now have their own sawmills, which allows them to produce boards and thus get more in return for their wood. The Carmelita cooperative invested around US$132,000 in a mill last year, which should help them boost their sales income this year.

The cooperative also formed an alliance with a government entity to train coop members in industrial carpentry. Now, 17 young men from the community are working on their first order of doors, windows, furniture and desks for a nearby office of the Rainforest Alliance. A mahogany desk sells for about US$178, according to Juan Francisco Trujillo, former president of the cooperative, who now works for the Rainforest Alliance.

And before they could finish the first job, they got a second one. A company that works in Guatemala and El Salvador ordered 150 doors a month for the rest of the year. Although much of the cooperative’s carpentry equipment is on loan from the government, Carmelita hopes to raise capital this year to buy its own machines.

The cooperative has grown from 36 associates when it was formed in 1993 to 126 members today. In 1997, it won a 25-year forest concession in the reserve. All but seven families from Carmelita, a village located in the concession area, are now associates. The cooperative dedicates itself almost exclusively to forestry, though it operates a small tourism business that organizes trips to nearby Mayan ruins. It also plans to begin exporting xate palm, which is used in floral decorations.

Last year, the cooperative’s gross sales totaled approximately US$260,000, with profits amounting to US$105,000. Forty percent of profits stay in the cooperative as capital—for buying new equipment, for instance. Another 30% goes toward social investments for the community in the areas of health, education, technical training and assistance for lower-income community members. The remaining 30% of profits is divided among the associates, which last year translated to about US$170 per family.

Trujillo admits this isn’t much, but he emphasizes that the real gains are in paying jobs for community members and improved education and technical training. A total of US$5,000 to $6,000 is paid out monthly to the cooperative’s 20 full-time and 35 temporary employees. “All the families have seen improvements,” says cooperative member Ana Centeno. “Now there’s more work and more possibilities to send our children to study.”

Still, the village lacks such basics as electricity and a secondary school. Associates hope increased profits from selling lumber and finished wood products will help spur development.

Adding value to timber is particularly important because the amount of wood that can be harvested from the forest concession is limited by FSC and Conap forest-management standards.

To maintain the certification it needs to retain its concession, Carmelita has to practice selective cutting aimed at ensuring that the stands of mahogany and other tree species it harvests are fully replenished. “The levels of extraction many times are reduced to one or two trees per hectare [2.5 acres],” says Wilson Guzman, a forestry expert who helps the Carmelita cooperative manage its concession.

A Global Positioning System (GPS) is used to identify and map the location of mahogany in order to develop extraction plans. The Carmelita cooperative replanted 262 acres (109 has) this year, Guzman adds.

Besides limiting extraction levels, FSC and Conap also require concession holders to protect watersheds and wetland areas. The forest-protection restrictions Carmelita must observe make it all the more important for the collective to increase the value of the timber it is allowed to harvest.

Gibson going certified

In the community of Uaxactún, which also manages a concession, locals are producing high-quality blocks of mahogany for guitar necks. The pieces were commissioned by the instrument-maker Gibson USA. Gibson’s broker, North American Wood Products, along with five other companies, recently placed orders for a total of US$3 million in certified wood and wood products from the Maya Biosphere Reserve concessions.

Gibson is on its way to making all of its instruments out of 100% certified wood. However, currently there aren’t enough certified-wood sources to meet the company’s demand and requirements, according to CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.

“We have to have sources that understand our needs,” Juszkiewicz says.

To help concession holders tap the international market, the Rainforest Alliance promotes certified wood internationally and helps link local wood producers with buyers. Meanwhile, concession holders recently formed Forescom, [Empresa Forestal Comunitaria de Servicios del Bosque] a commercial office charged with finding markets for timber products and ensuring customers’ needs are met.

According to the FSC, the market for certified products is on the rise in North and South America, Europe and Asia. The organization estimates the total market for certified wood products at US$5 billion annually.

Certified wood has a particularly strong market in certain European nations. The FSC says that in the United Kingdom last year, certified-wood sales topped US$1.7 billion, while in the Netherlands, they reached US$420 million, or 12% of that nation’s total lumber market.

One of Forescom’s prime goals is to seek out markets for lesser known, high-quality rainforest timber such as machiche (Lonchocarpus castilloi), pucte (Bucida buceras), Santa María (Calophyllum brasiliense) and catalox (Swartzia cubensis).

Machiche, also known as Caribbean cherry, and Santa María are dense, reddish hardwoods used for flooring, decking and furniture. Pucte, also called bulletwood, is yellowish-brown to olive green, extremely durable and good for outdoor use. And catalox, also known as Guatemalan ebony, is a dark, purplish wood, sometimes used as a substitute for ebony in stringed instruments and furniture.

Because these woods are not well known, many are sold for half the price of mahogany. This year, Forescom took a risk by buying 3,500 square meters of lesser-known timber species from ten communities.

“Forescom has managed to double the price of machiche and Santa María,” says Juan Trujillo, member and former president of the Carmelita cooperative. Now, the company has to find buyers. In May, the company sent containers full of wood samples to Europe in hopes of generating orders.

Some companies, like Oakland, California-based EarthSource Forest Products, already purchase lesser known hardwoods from the concessions. This year, the company bought around 600,000 board feet of lesser known tropical hardwoods, along with 300,000 board feet of mahogany.

EarthSource is working on several projects for the city of San Francisco, including one to supply tropical hardwood for city benches in Golden Gate Park, says Jason Benford, the company’s director. EarthSource also buys wood scraps and cutoffs from biosphere concession holders to produce “eco-decking.”

“It helps them sell their wood and it helps us with a product that is new and happening in the U.S.,” Benford says. He acknowledges that problems ranging from logistical difficulties to long waits for orders still can occur when buying wood from Forescom and the Maya Biosphere communities, but he adds that the kinks are being worked out.

Holders of the Carmelita and Uaxactún concessions recognize that a key challenge is to develop effective homegrown management. Says Trujillo: “We’re working on improving human capacities in administration so that we take control of the process and don’t have outsiders managing what’s really ours.”