0176-A1
Alberto Chinchilla[1]
The Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordinator of Communal Agroforestry (ACICAFOC) is a non-profit, grassroot organization that gathers together associations, cooperatives, federations and organized groups of small- to medium-scale agroforestry producers, indigenous people and peasant communities. These groups work to have access to, to use, and to manage natural resources and look for ways to achieve food security and economic sustainability for their communities, in ways that are in harmony with the environment.
ACICAFOC has the necessary experience, vision of self-sufficiency, principles of transparency and trust, and tools that can be applied towards innovating natural resource management projects.
Forest cover managed by peasant and indigenous groups: 2,602,425 hectares
Land covered by agroforestry systems managed by peasant and indigenous organizations: 375,749 hectares
Total forest cover in all of Central America: 18 million hectares
Percentage of forest cover managed by ACICAFOC groups: 14,5%
Total number of families involved: 1,036,670
Percentage of Central America’s rural population that participates in ACICAFOC: 6%
ACICAFOC defines itself as a social organization, regrouping different community based organizations in Central America. However, it operates like a network, since its member organizations are free to define their own activities, and are not tied by the decisions of the Main Board. The general headquarters distributes information, gives technical assistance and in some cases, acts as fundraiser.
We are a dynamic grass roots organization that pursues social and productive integration, promotes eco-development and the empowerment of indigenous and peasant communities, using their experiences as practical responses to the social, environmental and cultural vulnerability of Central America.
To be a reference for sustainable, social, economic, and environmental development, consolidated, self-sufficient, with business sense and with the ability to provide the agile and opportune responses to world development demands.
ACICAFOC was formally contitued in June of 1994, during the first Central American Gathering of Community Forestry in Costa Rica. It was the outcome of many forces, meetingss, and exchanges between different community experiences in the region.
ACICAFOC appears then as a new organization dragging along old organizations and federating new ones with its focus in forestry and agroforestry, and no allegiances to the political parties and no bad references of financial management. Due to the virtual disappearance of other representative organizations, ACICAFOC also inherited the representativity of peasants in the region, becoming one of the few valid interlocutors to discuss projects or policies. It has become one of the mandatory partners in Central America for any participatory process at the regional level, and is therefore a member of all kinds of consultative committees for several projects and for the regional integration stances.
From that early times, ACICAFOC has been building up, gaining more members as it is more widely recognized in the region, and managing to assemble a small permanent staff in San Jose, Costa Rica.
In that process, it has benefited from an informal network of sympathizers, professionals working on forestry or agriculture issues, and with experience in Central America. Some of them have historical relationships with some of ACICAFOC’s members, working with them alternatively ad-honorem, or under the frame of consultancies or projects. This network takes advantage of the complementary capacities of its members, and is updated about the last developments on relevant issues on an irregular basis. In return, ACICAFOC owes them political confidence, and commits them for special tasks it would not entrust to a regular consultant or foreign adviser. With time, a lot of personal ties have been drawn between these advisers, the ACICAFOC constituents, and ACICAFOC regional staff.
To strengthen incidence in rural government and isntitutions for local organizations and initiatives working for the access, use and management of natural resources.
To promote technical training in and local knowledge of natural resource management.
To create local financing systems and support the access to existing economic structures.
To encourage human development projects that permit the community eco-development and guarantee social, environmental and economic profitability.
To increase the focus on community eco-development.
One of the more important strategies of ACICAFOC is to counterbalance the position of intermediaries that some international NGOs enjoy in all matters concerning environment and development funds. The final goal is to put in contact, when possible, local experiences with the final donors.
ACICAFOC’s institutional culture, is to put forward issues aroused from concrete experiences of member organizations. Local organizations are not replaced by ACICAFOC in their traditional spheres of incidence, but ACICAFOC opens new fora for them, taking profit of its regional dimension (and cashing in on the supra-national effort of regional integration led by governments).
This supposes a strong recognition at an international level, which would allow ACICAFOC to put forward more efficiently the local groups’ point of view, but would also give the organization more legitimacy at the political level. Thus arises the need to maintain a certain presence at international summits concerning forestry or development in general. This forces ACICAFOC to dedicate an important part of its energies to participate in these summits, dedicating less time to attend its constituents.
To support its positions in Central American consultative fora ACICAFOC has made a certain number of alliances with kin organizations, like the Central American Black Organization (ONECA from its Spanish acronym). It also signed in 2000 an agreement for cooperation at Panajachel, Guatemala, with the Central American Indigenous Coordination (CICA). This agreement has largely remained theoretical, since CICA remains a very weak organization and no strong joint programs have been agreed to date.
At the Central American level, ACICAFOC also tries to improve its relationship with officials from concerned ministries (mostly environmental ones, but also agricultural as in some countries forests are under the agriculture jurisdiction). A key feature in this effort is the use of communication: ACICAFOC has taken every opportunity to publish books depicting its philosophy and the experience of its members, and has made an alliance with a catholic related video producer, which allows it to produce videos of good quality. The web page has had problems because of conflicts with the local domain provider, but it should be noted that ACICAFOC owns its domain name.
At the international level, ACICAFOC is member of the social chamber of the Forest Stewardship Council, and also of the International Workgroup on Community Involvement in Forest Management (CWG-CIFM) of IUCN. It is also part of the World Network for Community Agroforestry from Alberta University.
It has just become one of the fourth focal points of the preparation committee of the Caucus for Community Based Forest Management, after the Johannesburg Summit (Rio + 10), and is assuming. It has begun to organize a global meeting on this issue in Petén, Guatemala, in 2003
As we saw earlier, ACICAFOC has a strong proportion of members on the Caribbean side of Central America, but there are organizations from all the 6 Central American countries. Although Belize is not represented, there are some links with some organizations there. However, this links are still weak, and have translated in a few exchanges between local experiences.
Focal themes, according to ACICAFOC documents, are the following:
I. ACOFOP
Association of Forestry Communities in Peten
“THE WORLD’S LARGEST CERTIFIED COMMUNITY FOREST”
Peten, Guatemala’s largest department, has a population of approximately 500.000 and an extension of 35.874 square kilometers. Most of the population has migrated from other departments in search of land for agricultural purposes despite the fact that much of the land in Peten is forested land. The MBR declaration implied that those communities long settled inside the Reserve as well as their agricultural and forestry activities were illegal.
Illegal wood extraction and other activities, in addition to forest fires, have been the cause of forest deterioration. Thus, the reserve declaration triggered a battle against the interests of different sectors, including the wood industry, the smugglers of wood and other products, the farmers of illegal crops, and the owners of large properties inside the reserve. All of them have opposed to the legal dispositions for an adequate use of the natural resources.
The National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP, Spanish abbreviation), proposed the concession as the legal feature to regulate the use of wood and non-wood products within the multiple use areas in the reserve.
A concession is defined as a specific piece of land that is granted by the government for a period of time (currently 25 years) under certain conditions. For example, it can be granted to a community, company or scientific entity for exploitation and/or research purposes, in a controlled manner. The concession holder must pay a rental fee and comply with the requirements established by CONAP. These requirements include:
The approval of a management plan comprising an environmental impact study
The issue of a certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) within a three year period after the concession grant
The technical support of a non-governmental organization (NGO).
In addition, industrial concessions must pay an extraction fee for every cubic meter of wood. Concessions are an opportunity for communities to have a piece of land they can manage and work to satisfy their local needs.
In 1995, several community leaders who had been participating in the process of zoning negotiations in the MBR proposed the formation of a joint community front to defend their rights as beneficiaries of forest concessions. The goal of the group, known as the Association of Forest Communities in Peten (ACOFOP, Spanish abbreviation), was to apply community concessions for sustainable use of the forest. Later that year ACOFOP becomes a member of the Indigenous and Peasant Association of Community Agroforestry (ACICAFOC, Spanish abbreviation).
ACOFOP is now integrated by 30 communities and 19 organizations, including civil society groups, as well as associations and cooperatives. Some of them work within the Mayan Biosphere Reserve and others in the buffer zone. There are approximately 4.500 families that are direct beneficiaries of these concessions.
The wood industry has emphasized the technical, administrative, entrepreneurial and organizative limitations of community associations. However, ACOFOP’s members have been learning and developing organizative, technical, administrative and proposal capabilities to successfully execute forestry management activities. Currently, community organizations have initiated marketing contacts for international trade of forestry products. Actions as these grow and strengthen on a daily basis.
ACOFOP in numbers
30 communities
19 organizations
2.000 direct family beneficiaries
2.1 million hectares in Mayan Biosphere Reserve
437.597 hectares of forest under management plans
241.448 hectares with FSC certification
111.876 hectares to be certified
40.000 direct jobs
II. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ULEW CHE! JA! ASSOCIATION OF TOTONICAPáN, GUATEMALA
"Traditional Community Forest Management Plan to Guarantee the Sustainability of Water Resources"
Description of the Organization
The Ulew Che! Ja! Association (Earth, Tree and Water) is a community-based organization that was founded in 1994 and is made up of 80,000 members. With a seat in the Department of Totonicapán, in western Guatemala, the organization works to represent 80 counties.
The organization is responsible for the management of the community’s forest which traditionally belonged to their ancestors. The land was later purchased by the community´s ancestors from the government. Some records dating back to the year 1600 indicate that the community is the owner of the area of forest. The community’s land in Totonicapán is a primary growth forest with a dominant population of pine trees (Abies Guatemalensis). The high demand of this species, especially during the Christmas season, has placed the pine in danger of extinction.
Totonicapán is known for their forest management plan that works to guarantee the supply of water for present and future generations. The community has taken a leading role in their work to initiate projects to manage the forest for access to and distribution of water resources. Up to now, there are less than 160 kilometers of pipeline, which are administered by the community, to distribute the water. These communities are in charge of taking the respective steps for the execution and maintenance of the project.
Communities that benefit: 80
Forest area of community: 21,000 hectares
Total forest area of municipality: 42,000 hectares
32 kilometers of pipeline for each of the following project areas: Chotinimit and Pujacar, Palemop, Xantún, Xolsacmalja and Chuculjuyup
Projects to carry out: Poxlaju - 42 kilometers and Nimasac - 35 kilometers
Committees that will work on project: 63 committees with an average of 15 kilometers of pipeline per project
Cost of pipeline per kilometer: $3,570 USD
Number of identified water sources: 3,000
The community will make a decision to install their aqueduct.
They will identify the supply of the water sources in the forest.
Their request for authorization from the municipality for the right to use the resources will be evaluated in the summer to determine the quantity of water available for use by the community.
They will complete a technical study to verify the viability of the dam and decide whether this should be done by the government or by contracting a private company.
They will look for funding through the government, non-governmental organizations and within the community itself.
It is difficult for an organization like ACICAFOC to emerge, specially when years of international cooperation and government indifference have created bad habits in some grassroots and national or regional organizations. Representativity, accountability, financial sustainability are not common across Central America, and ACICAFOC is one new model of organization trying to implement all that. ACICAFOC is headed in its own slow process towards greater efficiency, but this process is still very fragile, as in this structure, the personality of its Regional Facilitator is key to the present success.
In some sense, ACICAFOC is a victim of its own success, as more and more tasks are added to the regional staff with the organization getting global. The organization would need specifically tailored help -including funding- to grow into an efficient but sustainable network of organizations. This includes help to distinguish strategic agendas from anecdotical ones, essential fora from meetings where it would play the exotic guest.
But what ACICAFOC would desperately need is help to strengthen its constituents. Today, they range from neighbors groups looking for cooperation funding to large second level organizations federating several community-based organizations. For some of them, community forestry is already a daily reality, and for others, it is merely a remote dream. Perhaps the best way to help ACICAFOC and community forestry is not to overestimate their true present situation and accompany them on their way up to success.
The experience of ACICAFOC in Central America tends to demonstrate that in many sensitive issues, regional fora for discussion would open political space for a national organization. This is true specially when the issues are so sensitive that government official can not address them on a consensual or participatory approach. Meeting representatives from their national organizations abroad sometimes opens the door for dialog which could not be undertaken in their own countries.
The institutionalization of national coordinators among members from the same country seemed a natural step to past regional organizations, but it revealed to be trap, as national structures were costly and didn’t succeed to be self-financing. ACICAFOC prefers to work on a loose network of organizations, which could sometimes work on a common thematic rather than on a national front.
National offices could later come from natural processes of interrelation rather than be imposed to solve communication problems of the headquarters with members. This lesson is learned from the fate of a similar organization, called ASOCODE, composed mostly of agrarian organizations, which became a small bureaucracy with little relation with the grassroots). For the time being, the moment is not ready for national offices in most countries, since the organizations have hard times at their local level.
Communications are the main bottleneck for the development of a regional network of community based organizations like ACICAFOC. As pointed out before, some organizations do not even have access to a phone, and must rely on messages left on public phones.
| [1] ACICAFOC, Association of
Forest Communities in Peten, Costa Rica. Email: [email protected]
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