Elias, Marlène

Rodas, A.

Stoian, D.

CGSpace

Tropentag, September 20-22, 2017, Bonn“Future Agriculture:Socio-ecological transitions and bio-cultural shifts”Land, Livelihoods and Gender: Dynamics of Community Forestry inPete´n, GuatemalaDietmar Stoian1, Marlene Elias2, Aldo Rodas31Bioversity International, Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems Initiative, France2Bioversity International, Malaysia3Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Guatemala, Natural Resources and Agrotourism,AbstractIn the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Pete´n, Guatemala, about 350,000 ha of forest havebeen granted as community concessions since 1997. Each of these concessions is operatedby a community forest enterprise (CFE) which is responsible for sustainably managing theforest and sharing the resulting benefits among members. In coming years, all currentlynine active concessions will be considered for renewal contingent upon their environmentaland socio-economic performance. In contribution to this assessment, this study providesscientific evidence on: 1) Socio-economic benefits, 2) Gendered access to resources, and 3)Opportunities for enhancing gender equity and, overall, viability of the concessions.Adopting an asset-based approach, we initially studied the socio-economic performanceof three concessions in 2014/15 using the 5Capitals methodology. In 2016/17, we expandedthe study to three further concessions in which we tested a gender-responsive version ofthe methodology (5Capitals-G) to elucidate gender-based constraints and opportunities inthe CFEs and the value chains they are linked to.Concession benefits at enterprise and household levels were significant, but varied wi-dely across CFEs (n=6) and households (n=170). At enterprise level, asset building wasmost pronounced as regards natural, social and physical capitals. Human capital was welldeveloped for managing forests, but less so for processing wood and doing business. Allenterprises were profitable, but their financial capital varied. Men dominate CFE gover-nance, but women are increasingly shaping business decisions. At household level, forestincome allowed CFE members to move above the (extreme) poverty line and to developtheir physical and human capital. Labor was strongly divided by gender, with men prima-rily focused on timber and women on non-timber forest products. Women’s influence onhousehold decisions and control over resources varied widely. Most CFEs lack strategiesto involve younger women and men in forest management and business administration.This threatens the long-term prospects of the CFEs, as do competing claims on the landby external stakeholders. We argue that the community concessions should be renewedas they contribute to both forest conservation and livelihoods development, and concludewith opportunities for enhancing this model and scaling it elsewhere in Latin America andbeyond.Keywords: Asset building, community forestry, forest enterprises, gender, Guatemala, livelihoods,Pete´nContact Address: Dietmar Stoian, Bioversity International, Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems Initiative,Parc Scientifique Agropolis II, 34397 Montpellier - Cedex 5, France, e-mail: d.stoian@cgiar.org

Land, livelihoods and gender: Dynamics of community forestry in Peten, Guatemala.

https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/89414/1/Land_Stoian_2017.pdf

Land, livelihoods and gender: Dynamics of community forestry in Peten, Guatemala.

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