The Forestry Communities are a democratic innovation implemented by peasant and indigenous organizations that, through community management, promote the ecological sustainability and socioeconomic development of the multiple uses area of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. They are created in the framework of the community forestry concessions that the Government granted after the creation of the protected area in Petén - these concessions were devised for industrial groups, however, thanks to international pressure and non-governmental organizations, and because of the weak state-presence in the region, they were finally granted to the civil society. The 22 Forest Communities are organized through the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (Span. ACOFOP), which legalizes and fosters the technical and productive organizational capacity of the organized community groups, and creates alliances with other non-governmental organizations. In addition, the General Assembly of ACOFOP (made up of representatives of each community group) is responsible for representing and influencing local, national and international political spaces.
Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?
Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?
Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?
Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?
Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?
Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?
- only backed by a governmental program or policy
- Mode of selection of participants
- Type of participants
- civil society
- democratic innovation yields a non-binding decision