Forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala: A decade later Jeremy Radachowsky a,⇑ , Victor H. Ramos a,b , Roan McNab a , Erick H. Baur c , Nikolay Kazakov d a Wildlife Conservation Society, Casa #3, Avenida 15 de marzo, Flores, Petén, Guatemala b Centro de Monitoreo y Evaluación, Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas (CONAP) de Guatemala, Antiguo Hospital de San Benito, Petén, Guatemala c Integrated Environmental and Wildlife Management Services SA, Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala d University of Florida, 103 Black Hall, PO Box 116455, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA article info Article history: Available online 29 September 2011 Keywords: Multiple-use forestry Community forest management Forest concessions Tropical forest management Integrated conservation and development projects Guatemala abstract In the Multiple-Use Zone of Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, the usufruct rights to timber and non- timber forest resources were granted through concession agreements to 12 community organizations and two private timber companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After more than a decade, some con- cessions are successfully managing forests for multiple uses while others have had limited success or failed completely. This paper provides a management unit-based analysis and evaluation of the evolution of these forest concessions. First, we present a critical assessment of the current state of ecological integ- rity, socio-economic development, governance, and financing within each of the 14 forest concessions, using a series of quantitative and qualitative indicators. Next, we categorize the different trajectories that the concessions have experienced, and describe the key biophysical, socio-economic, and market events and drivers that may have influenced their outcomes. Lastly, we provide suggestions for the continued consolidation of multiple-use forest management practices in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, and draw out lessons for multiple-use forest management elsewhere in the tropics. Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the past few decades, conservation activities have shifted radically from command-and-control strategies toward more inclusive, people-oriented philosophies. This shift was instigated on the one hand by the growing recognition that strict protection- ism was in many cases failing, leading to a loss in ecological and institutional resilience (Holling and Meffe, 1996; Berkes, 2004). On the other hand, it was recognized that rural communities are often the most impactful and impacted actors within natural sys- tems (Western and Wright, 1994; Folke et al., 2005). This widely observed ‘‘pathology of natural resource management’’ and a call for increased social justice led many to believe that incentive- based, participatory strategies were the optimal solution to hu- man–environment conflicts (Ghimire and Pimbert, 1997). In the 1980s and 1990s, integrated conservation and develop- ment projects (ICDPs), often taking the form of community-based conservation or community-based forest management, were exten- sively promoted as one such way to achieve conservation objectives while improving the livelihoods of local stakeholders (Schelhas et al., 2001). By providing alternative sources of income directly linked to wellbeing of natural systems, it was argued, stakeholders would cease to utilize environmentally destructive practices for income and would protect the natural resources upon which their new livelihoods depended. Multiple-use forest management was a logical strategy for maximizing environmental and socio-economic benefits by addressing both commercial and subsistence needs through the extraction of timber and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) (Panayotou and Ashton, 1992). However, despite many at- tempts to implement ICDPs for multiple-use management world- wide and substantial investment from donor organizations, very few projects have achieved their goals (Kellert et al., 2000; Barrett et al., 2001, 2005; McShane and Wells, 2004). Two arguments have been put forth to explain the widespread failure of ICDPs (Berkes, 2004). Some argue that economic develop- ment and conservation may be inherently incompatible in conser- vation projects (Redford and Sanderson, 2000; Browder, 2002; McShane and Wells, 2004). Others contend that most ICDPs were implemented inadequately, failing to fulfill basic necessary condi- tions such as: devolution of authority and rights to local people, sufficient technical and institutional capacity, economic viability, fair distribution of revenue, reconciliation between local and global interests, and resilience of ecological processes and social institu- tions (Adams and Hulme, 2001; Barrett et al., 2005; Murphree, 2002; McShane and Wells, 2004; Robinson and Redford, 2004; Sayer and Campbell, 2004; Stoian et al., 2009; Wells et al., 2004). ICDPs based upon multiple-use forest management have also had to contend with the extra challenge of seeking compatibility among diverse forest uses and stakeholders, entailing technical, 0378-1127/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.08.043 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +502 203 885 8842. E-mail address: jradachowsky@wcs.org (J. Radachowsky). Forest Ecology and Management 268 (2012) 18–28 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Forest Ecology and Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foreco