Project/activity information

This project is the result of ITTO pre-project PPD 64/02 Rev.1 (M) “Promotion of Guatemalan Certified Timber and Timber Products Trade”.

In the last few years, Guatemala has made significant progress in its efforts to achieve sustainable tropical forest management. One example of these efforts is the strengthening of the forest concessions granted to communities and industries in the Multiple Use Zones of the Peten Mayan Biosphere Reserve. As a result of this process, the area had 534,200 hectares under forest concessions granted by the year 2002. Currently (April 2004), a total 515,023 hectares are certified forests under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) criteria. Of these, 511,661 hectares are natural tropical forests under concession in the Peten area, with a majority of community forests (380,334 hectares). These figures are a sample of Guatemala's world leadership role in community forest management and forest certification in natural tropical forests. Now it is necessary to strengthen and complement this process through a marketing strategy to encourage the use and utilisation of lesser-known timber species and timber products. Although Guatemala's tropical forests include a large variety of forest species that are suitable for industrial utilisation in the manufacture of various products, to date both utilisation and industrial development have focused on two species i.e. mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and cedar (Cedrella odorata).

The production and marketing of timber products derived from lesser-known species is limited. This is caused by
(a) the lack of support mechanisms for marketing,
(b) small volumes used and marketed, and
(c) limited industrial utilisation thereof.

This Project will focus on solving the two former issues. It will encourage production and marketing of timber products from lesser-known species from sustainably managed forests by integrating Forest Industry and Market.

The strategy will strengthen local capacity by training personnel on support mechanisms for marketing, communities and industries. The Project will be directly linked to the production sector, community groups and forest industries, all of which had an active involvement in the project since its inception.