Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Alta Verapaz

Early last week I went up to the department of Alta Verapaz to visit forestry and tourism projects.  The first day we visited a series of project sites related to certified wood/forestry in and around the city of Coban.  The first stop was at FEDECOVERA, a cooperative that works with certified wood.






The 2nd stop of the day was to a certified tea plantation (that also has certified forest plots)









The 3rd stop was at a certified forestry plantation that also has a small greenhouse that is used to produce tree saplings, coffee plants, and cardamom plants.






And to provide a complete picture of the value chain, the final stop of the day was a small furniture business that produces furniture made from certified wood.



On the second day, we headed out of Coban to nearby Chisec  to visit the Candelaria caves where USAID projects have been working to support local, community run tourism.  One of these projects is cave tubing.













On the third day, before driving back to Guatemala City, we listened to presentations related a land conflict resolution project where one component is the  training of indigenous women as conflict resolution specialists on issues related to land rights. 




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