Community uses reforestation project as a stepping stone

A forest nursery training program supported by IFC has trained 80 farmers in Guatemala. The local community is applying good growing practices to launch a community-based agribusiness that will soon distribute its products internationally.

The municipalities of Sipacapa and San Miguel in Guatemala are plagued by poverty rates of 90% and 70% respectively, and three quarters of the population is indigenous. The main economic activity in the region, a natural disaster prone area, is subsistence agriculture.

In 2002, Montana Exploradora signed a concession agreement with the government of Guatemala to establish a gold mining project in the region. Under this agreement, Montana Exploradora committed to reforest areas impacted by mine construction. The company established the Fundación Sierra Madre, an independent, community-based foundation, to carry out long-term community development, health, and enterprise development activities for the benefit of local communities surrounding the mine.

IFC, through a grant of $117,000 from its Social Responsibility program (formerly the Corporate Citizenship Facility), has worked in partnership with the Fundación to establish a forest nursery to supply seedlings for reforestation to Montana Exploradora. In the end, 80 farmers, rather than the 50 initially planned, were trained in forest nursery techniques and 30,000 seedlings were sold to the mine, 50% more than what was initially planned.

The project, called "Semillas para el desarrollo" or "Seeds for Development", also included a feasibility study of forestry and agricultural products as potential sources of additional community income. Promising leads have been generated with regard to a variety of agricultural products. This region of Guatemala appears well-suited to the cultivation of vegetables such as French beans, broad beans, sugar daddies, and snow peas.

To seize this opportunity, ten pilot plots for the above crops in the two communities near the mine site have been established. Purchase agreements have already been struck with buyers from UK supermarkets.

What started as a local community development project is turning into a sustainable business model that could be expanded more broadly in the communities based on the results from the pilot phase.