The World’s Best Forest Guardians: Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples and local communities have an unsurpassed connection to the Earth's forests.
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Indigenous people have lived from the forest since time immemorial, using its resources sparingly and carefully so that it might continue to produce its riches. What the Rainforest Alliance brings to this age-old model are the tools and support to make it economically viable in today’s world. We connect local and indigenous communities with markets, provide technical and business support, and work to improve human well-being—all while conserving the forest.
This page features information about the Rainforest Alliance's work to promote community forestry and links to all our related content and resources.
Working with forest communities, governments, companies, and civil society organizations, we promote more sustainable forest management practices throughout the tropics. We provide training, tools, and knowledge to communities; promote youth inclusion and gender equality; work to increase forest cover, biodiversity, and carbon capture; promote secured rights to forests; and provide access to alliances, finance, and markets, so that forest communities—and forests—may thrive.
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Integrated Community Forest Management Position Paper
This paper outlines our principles and strategies for stopping forest degradation and supporting forest communities in vulnerable tropical regions.
KLEINHANS FELLOWSHIP FOR COMMUNITY FORESTRY RESEARCH
Our Kleinhans Fellowship supports research that seeks solutions to the challenges faced by the community forestry model.
HOW OUR FOREST ALLIES WORK TOGETHER TO SUPPORT THRIVING RURAL COMMUNITIES
Our Forest Allies initiative leverages the enormous power of our partnerships to support forest communities as they address the climate crisis and combat deforestation.
Eight Lessons from Supporting Community Forest Management and Enterprises
This paper summarizes our lessons learnt from twenty years of global experience in community forestry.
Our Work: Community forestry
Community: The Secret to Stopping Deforestation in Guatemala
The forest concessions of the Maya Biosphere Reserve have boasted a near-zero deforestation rate for 20 years.
Project Profile: Stopping deforestation and improving livelihoods with community forestry in the Congo Basin
Sitting in the heart of the Congo Basin, the 36,000 square kilometer Salonga National Park (SNP) is the largest protected area of dense rainforest on the African continent.
The Rainforest Alliance's Work in Mexico
We are working to grow Mexico’s domestic market for sustainably produced products.
All resources for Community forestry
Towards Sustainable Landscapes: Strengthening Forest Management and Promoting Income Diversification In an Indigenous Community
A Case Study of Work with Tres Islas Native Community (Madre de Dios, Peru) The last two decades have seen a marked shift towards decentralized forest management in developing countries. Upwards of 30 percent of forests in the tropics is now under some form of local control (RRI 2014). Most of this area is located in […]
Meeting the New Global Demand For Lesser-Known Species: Developing Community Forestry Enterprises in the Maya Biosphere Reserve
A Case Study of Communities in The Maya Biosphere Reserve, (Petén, Guatemala) Expanding markets for lesser-known species (LKS) has long been identified as a key need to increase the competitiveness of community forest enterprise (CFE), especially in the tropics. A production focus on a single or small range of forest species with strong market demand […]
Expanding Access to Finance For Community Forest Enterprises in the Maya Biosphere Reserve
A Case Study of Work with Forestry Concessions In the Maya Biosphere Reserve (Petén, Guatemala) Lack of access to finance is widely cited as a critical bottleneck to improving the competitiveness of community forest enterprises (CFEs). Having capital on hand beyond the rather small savings that most CFEs have is essential to cover annual planning […]
Towards Integrated Community Forest Enterprise in Chihuahua, Mexico
A Case Study of Ejido El Largo y Anexos, (Chihuahua, Mexico) Mexico has what is probably the most advanced community forestry sector on earth. More than 60 percent of the nation’s forestland is owned by rural communities. This is largely the legacy of agrarian reform born out of the Mexican Revolution and implemented in successive […]
The GuateCarbon initiative and REDD+ readiness in Guatemala
As one of the only such projects in the world that is building on community-based production forestry and enterprise, GuateCarbon is generating important lessons with global significance.
Mexican Community Forestry: Enterprises and Associations as a Response to Barriers
In this brief, the case of Mexican community forestry is presented, with a special focus on the diversity of local enterprises and inter-community associations that have developed over the past twenty-five years, as well as an assessment of some of the main regulatory barriers that communities face in undertaking legal forest harvesting.