Association of Forestry Communities of Peten (ACOFOP)

At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, policies were developed in the Central American countries related to the conservation of forest, water and cultural areas; the governments created specific legislations, thus establishing a complex of Protected Areas that tried conservation and perpetuity but with the ideology of restricting access to these resources. Guatemala, a country rich in natural and cultural resources, is attached to the initiatives of the region and in the year of 1989, through Legislative Decree 4-89 creates the Guatemalan System of Protected Areas (SIGAP) and the National Council of Areas is born Protected (CONAP) as the state institution responsible for the administration of all protected areas nationwide. It is then that in Guatemala the creation of protected areas begins and in the year of 1990, through Legislative Decree 5-90 creates the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) , the largest protected area in the country, with more than 2 million of hectares of natural forest, this reserve represented one of the greatest challenges for CONAP , since the area categorized by law as a Biosphere Reserve, had previously settled peasant and indigenous communities, with which it had to develop sustainable management models.