By Mario Ardany de Leon | Guatemala Program Officer
Dear GlobalGiving Supporters,
I hope you are doing well and staying healthy! We are so grateful for your support. Truly, it means so much. I wanted to share with you a few recent updates.
In late May 2021 our partner, the 48 Cantones Natural Resource Committee of Totonicapán, began the campaign to distribute ~130,000 seedlings grown in the greenhouses to community groups, schools, and others in order to plant the trees that were ready. This was all done following safety protocols and wearing masks. The reforestation sites were prioritized based on the degree of degradation and importance to water source protection. The process continues through August and has received recognition from the local press.
In addition, community monitoring brigades have continued to go into the forest on a monthly basis to detect and take action against any illegal logging or other incursions into the forest. They actively collaborate with local natural resource authorities in order to document infractions that they encounter and assess fines or penalties and confiscate logging equipment.
In the Sarstun region, we are working with two communities to develop management plans for mangrove and coastal tropical forests for purposes of conservation. This has included the delimitation and georeferencing of 19.35 hectares of tropical forest owned by the Fishermen's Committee. This management plan will be submitted to the PROBOSQUE program to secure forestry incentives for the community. Georeferencing was carried out and 9 sampling plots of 1,000 square meters each were established to calculate the basal areas and the diameter at breast height of the trees within the conservation area. This entailed a multi-day trek on foot and boat to properly delimit and conduct the forest inventory.
With these plans and capacity-building in place, the communities will be able to continue to conserve their forests in the long term. I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress and thank you for your support! We are grateful that you are part of our community and that you have supported us during this journey.
In solidarity,
Mario Ardany de Leon, Program Officer, Guatemala
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