Sustainable forestry in practice

Can you protect the forest if you are living far away from it? Yes, if you are FORESCOM member called AFISAP. AFISAP is located only 25 minutes away from Flores (Petén) in San Andrés Municipality and manages a forestry concession 90 km away as non-resident community. How can they do it? They organizing themselves and involve the community to manage the forest in a sustainable way.

Nubia, general manager of AFISAP

The whole concession is divided in 8 plots, with a rotation cycle of 5 years. This means that if a plot has been harvested this year, it will need to pass 40 years before the same plot is harvested again, so the forest can regenerate in a natural way.

Afterwards I visited AFISAP’s organic agro-forestry farm and eco-tourism project. They have many species like mahogany, cedar, cacao, orange trees, xate, and Chico Zapote trees. The organic farm also produces organic honing. And in the middle there is a small plantation of medicinal plants town managed by AFISAP’s women’s group.