Project/activity information

The status of Mexico's rainforests is a reflexion of the imbalance between forest and agricultural and livestock development; the latter characterised by the accelerated rate of deforestation. Furthermore, there has been a lack of suitable silvicultural methods to manage these forests which, in general, have been treated inadequately.

This project proposal seeks to strengthen, encourage and evaluate sustainable tropical forest management in Mexico, with a view to achieving the ITTO's Objective 2000 and the Mexican Government's Forest Development Plan so that international trade may be based on raw materials originating from forests managed and certified according to criteria and indicators that strengthen the sustainability of this resource.

Overall, the proposal aims to develop management programmes for the sustainable conservation and utilisation of tropical forests in the southeast of Mexico (Los Tuxtlas, Chimalapas, Selva Lacandona, Centla, Calakmul, Tekax, and Sian Kaan). More specifically, it envisions transferring knowledge to the Ejido communities that own tropical forest resources in these regions in order to develop and implement specific local C&I to evaluate and monitor the progress towards sustainable forest management.

Major outputs include the following:

- Diagnosis of forest resources in the tropical forests of the South-eastern Coastal Plains;
- Forest management evaluation processes tailored to Mexico's tropical forest conditions (society, legislation, economy, and environment); and
- Validated local C&I with a holistic view of ecological, economic and social systems required to evaluate tropical forest management.