In Guatemala City on October 28″ 2010″ RRI Collaborator Ut'z Che' organized a march of the National Forum of Forest Actors and subsequent meeting with high-level government representatives.
Over 500 community leaders marched from Guatemala City’s central park to the doors of the Guatemalan Congress” where they met with the vice-president’s executive board of the Congress. In the meeting” community leaders voiced their concerns over the delayed implementation of a law to promote incentives for small forest landholders (through the National Forest Institute’s PINPEP program) and other legal concerns.
As a result of this meeting” the PINPEP Law No. 3937″ Decree No. 51 was approved” which gives reforestation incentives for small community landholders in Guatemala. The parties also forged an agreement to work toward a mutually beneficial resolution of the urgent need to preserve forest and natural resources for rural communities in Guatemala” and set up spaces for future dialogue.