Event Details

11:30-12:00 pm - Pizza Social

12:00-12:30 pm - Presentation

Speakers:   Guatemalan Community Forestry Leaders

Community Leaders from Uaxactun, a forest community in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, will be visiting Macalester.  Come meet our visitors and hear about the positive impact that community-led forestry and agroforestry has had on both local people and the forest they call home.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve is considered to be a community forestry success story.  Currently, there are about 2 million acres of tropical forest under community management in the Maya Biosphere Reserve.  Uaxactun is one of several communities in the reserve that have successfully promoted community well-being and ecological conservation through the sustainable harvest of both timber and non-timber forest products. In these areas, communities have brought down the rates of deforestation as well as protected the lands they manage from fire and conversion to agriculture or pasture, demonstrating that devolving tenure rights to local communities leads to conservation benefits.  At the same time, income generated by community enterprises has allowed communities like Uaxactun to invest in education, create employment opportunities for local men and women, provide for community medical needs, and improve the well-being of its people. 

Learn more about Uaxactun and Community Forestry here: https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/in-the-field/community-the-secret-to-stopping-deforestation-in-guatemala/