By ripping out tussocks of grass, Leonel Acosta wages an unequal but hopeful battle to breathe new life into land deforested by illegal ranching in the heart of Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, the largest tropical forest in the world. “Central America.”
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The sun is beating down on him, but the 35-year-old remains confident in the success of the community model introduced over the last fifteen years to curb illegal deforestation, preserve the forest and its biodiversity and feed the local population.
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To achieve these goals, the government and communities work together with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Since 2009, the organization has been raising communities’ environmental awareness and offering them training in agriculture, forestry and beekeeping.
The municipality of Leonel Acosta received one of the concessions that the state has been granting to the local population for thirty years so that they can establish sustainable production there. Some reforest them, others cultivate them or produce honey.
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In this area, called La Colorada, grasslands cover about 600 hectares of former jungle, says Leonel Acosta, who prefers to tear up the grass rather than burn it. When it burns, it grows back stronger, he says, and is proud to show how prairie areas have already been reforested with cedar and mahogany trees.
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In other areas, people grow corn, beans, sweet potatoes and yucca, including “woody” species that will be productive within a few years, explains Antonio Juarez, a 38-year-old resident. “Maybe not us (…), but our children will be the generation that can enjoy these trees,” he said.
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Evictions
Located in the north of the country, on the border with Mexico and Belize, this huge reserve of more than 2.1 million hectares, home to 200,000 people, fell from 20% to 33% between 2000 and 2022 due to timber trade, fires, etc. been deforested, especially the establishment of cattle pastures.
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The park is home to a variety of wildlife, lakes and rivers, as well as significant vegetation essential for absorbing CO2, the main cause of climate change. In this dense jungle, the Mayans built the city of Tikal, Guatemala’s most important archaeological site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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But many areas of the reserve have been damaged by illegal livestock farming, which locals say is sometimes used to launder drug money.
“It was the jungle and now it has been degraded,” laments Leonel Acosta, a member of the Selva Maya del Norte association.
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Illegal operations are located and reported via satellite. But evictions take a long time due to judicial bureaucracy, regrets the regional director of the National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP), Apolinario Cordova.
What is missing is an “increased inter-institutional presence,” he says. Military and police are present at the access points to the reserve, but attacks continue, he said.
Despite these difficulties, more than 157,000 hectares of forest have been reclaimed in the last decade, according to the WCS organization. According to the same source, at least 45,000 hectares have been reforested and 3,500 hectares are being restored.
In the meadows, cicadas and crickets have replaced the birds. But with reforestation, jaguars, macaws and migratory birds are returning.
Thanks to a camera attached to the trunk of a tree, Leonel Acosta and WCS experts confirm this return, which contributes to the dispersal of seeds, a passive restoration of the forest.
“With every tree we plant (…) we feel like we are giving life to the whole world.” It is a hope,” César Paz, WCS forest restoration coordinator, told AFP.