Since 2009, the Rainforest Alliance has been working with businesses and community organizations known as Agrupaciones Sociales del Lugar (ASLs), which hold logging concessions for much of the forest in the region. With support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Tinker Foundation, the Rainforest Alliance has helped those organizations to improve their stewardship of the land, worker conditions and market competitiveness.
In an effort to help coffee farmers conserve their forest landscapes, reduce emissions and receive payments for the climate services provided by their sustainably managed farms, the Rainforest Alliance has teamed up with local partners in Mexico as well as a coffee-industry leader on an innovative reforestation project in the state of Oaxaca.
With the launch of a sustainable standard for sugar production and the pilot certification of a plantation in El Salvador, a new chapter in the crop’s troubled history is being written. Crafted by a diverse group of locally based stakeholders in the tropics, the standard -- which was launched in April 2009 -- will ensure that economically viable sugarcane farming is compatible with biodiversity conservation and worker welfare.
Increasingly, pineapple growers are embracing the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal and transforming their production practices to help conserve the environment and ensure the well-being of workers and local communities.
