Caption

Timber and non-timber forest products can be managed concurrently with the right mix of approaches. Photo by Douglas Sheil.

Palm fronds point the way to integrated forest management

By James Clarke

In the days leading up to Palm Sunday, planes loaded with greenery take off from Guatemala bound for the United States and Canada. Every year 30 million xate palm fronds are exported from Guatemala to North America. Demand peaks around Palm Sunday, when congregations decorate their churches with fronds; the floral industry also uses palms year round. The trade contributes millions of US dollars to the Guatemalan economy.

Xate fronds are one of an increasing number of products besides timber being profitably harvested from forests. In Guatemala the financial benefits of xate collection have long been recognised. When Community Forest concessions were set up in the department of el Petén in the early 1990s, multiple forest use, harvesting both timber and xate, was explicitly incorporated into management plans. more

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New publications

Researching local perspectives on biodiversity in tropical landscapes: lessons from ten case studies (2010)

Boissiere, M.; Sassen, M.; Sheil, D.; Heist, M. V.; Jong, W. D.; Cunliffe, R.; Wan, M.; Padmanaba, M.; Liswanti, N.; Basuki, I.; Evans, K.; Cronkleton, P.; Lynam, T.; Koponen, P.; Bairaktari, C. details

Pengelolaan sumberdaya hutan di era desentralisasi: pelajaran yang dipetik dari hutan penelitian Malinau, Kalimantan Timur, Indonesia (2009)

Gunarso, P.; Setyawati, T.; Sunderland, T.C.H.; Shackleton, C.; eds. details


PDF: Indonesian (4.5 MB)
PDF: English (4.6 MB)

Social geomatics: participatory forest mapping to mediate resource conflict in the Bolivian Amazon (2010)

Cronkleton, P.; Albornoz, M.A.; Barnes, G.; Evans, K.; de Jong, W. details

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RESEARCH THEMES
Climate change mitigation
Climate change adaptation
Improving livelihoods
Conservation and development
trade-offs
Globalised trade and investment
Production forests

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Taking stock of smallholder and community forestry: Where do we go from here?

24-26 March 2010 in Montpellier, France

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Forest governance, decentralisation and REDD in Latin America

31 August–3 September 2010 in Mexico City, Mexico

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