• Guatemala’s community forest concessions helped generate verified carbon emissions reductions through the jurisdictional REDD+ Guatecarbon project, contributing to the country’s first results-based payment for forest protection.
• Through years of organizing and advocacy, the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) and the Petén concessionaires, helped secure legal recognition as “implementers,” making them eligible to receive a fair share of carbon payments.
• The experience of Guatecarbon, captured in a recently co-published case study, offers lessons for Indigenous peoples and local communities working to defend their rights and negotiate more equitable carbon market agreements.

Dawn hasn’t fully lifted over San Andrés, in Guatemala’s region of Petén, when Erico Fernando Chi Lainez is already moving through the day’s checklist—calls to make, food to pack, gear to test. As president and legal representative of the Integral Forestry Association San Andrés Petén (AFISAP) and a community leader from the Nueva Juventud neighborhood, he has spent much of his life protecting the forest his community depends on. Some mornings begin behind a desk. But today, he returns to the territory that he protects.

Erico followed regular protocols preparing for this multi-day visit to the forest concession held by his organization. “I meet with the board, then with the management team, and then the field manager to agree on what we’re going to do,” he says. Then, almost as an insistence, he adds what matters most to him: “I coordinate administrative issues, but I like the fieldwork.”

From the town center, the journey to the heart of the concession is not a quick drive. It can take around three and a half hours in the dry season, and up to seven when the rains turn roads into slow, muddy corridors. Once they arrive, the teams settle into forest camps that will be home for days. From there, they patrol for fire risks, search for signs of illegal logging or hunting, and check camera traps that record the wildlife moving through the trees—the everyday work of keeping a living forest standing.

Payment for Results

The San Andrés concession is one of 10 that comprise the REDD+ Guatecarbon project, a forest carbon initiative developed by community concessions in Petén that since 2006 seeks to reduce deforestation through community forest management and forest conservation. In December 2025, Guatemala received its first results-based payment under its national Program for Emissions Reductions, supported by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). The payment—linked to verified reductions of 4.84 million tons of carbon emissions for the year 2020—marked an important precedent as the first time the country was paid for protecting its forests at a national scale.

Forest protection is one of the most effective and feasible nature-based solutions to climate change. When countries are paid for reducing emissions from deforestation, it creates a financial incentive to keep forests standing. Indigenous peoples and forest communities steward significant swaths of tropical forests, and are proven to be some of the most effective forest guardians. Yet, studies have shown that they receive less than 1% of climate finance, one mechanism of which is results-based payments. In light of this, renewed emphasis has been placed on ensuring equitable benefit sharing agreements in carbon market deals.

For the forest communities of Petén, the news marked a long-awaited milestone. Despite nearly two decades of protecting forests, reducing deforestation, and generating verified carbon credits, this was the first disbursement under the national system. It represents a turning point after a long and often uncertain journey. For Erico, these funds reflect the communities’ decades-long effort to protect the forest, which is finally beginning to be valued.

Securing Carbon Rights without Land Rights

In Guatemala, Indigenous peoples and forest communities do not all have their land rights recognized. In Petén, their rights to forests are granted as holders of ‘forest concessions’ on lands which are ultimately state owned. When Guatemala passed its Climate Change Law in 2013, it did not clearly recognize community forest concessionaires as owners of carbon rights, and therefore rights to the emissions reductions generated on those lands.

Erico recalls how the process began with a struggle for the right to manage a larger territory. “As an urban center, we didn’t have rights to a larger swath of forest. We started meeting and looking for ways to acquire land, because where else would our people make a living?” he explains.

For years, they faced doubts from the authorities about their capacity to create livelihoods by protecting the forest. “They didn’t believe in us… they questioned how we could protect the area if we didn’t have resources, and besides, unlike other communities, we didn’t live within the protected area,” he remembers. However, after persisting and organizing, the community succeeded in obtaining a forestry concession. They made their income from harvesting forest products, which was possible due to their forest stewardship and action to prevent fires as well as illegal logging and poaching on the lands.

Once carbon markets emerged as another income stream, the forest concessionaires once again had to prove to the government that their forest protection and stewardship contributed to emissions reductions and therefore the right to access a fair share of any earnings linked to carbon.

Through the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP), the concessionaires organized collectively to advocate to secure their rights. A new case study jointly published by ACOFOP and Rainforest Foundation US documents their efforts, from proactively engaging in the design of Guatemala’s national Program for Emissions Reductions, to conducting technical and legal analyses and policy proposals; to engaging legislators, presidents and ministers in office as well as with government agencies to shape the implementation and monitoring of the national program and the benefit-sharing agreement.

For Spanish and Portuguese translations of the Guatecarbon case study, click here

Their efforts led to a key breakthrough: Decree 20-2020, which recognized the role of “implementers”, including community concessionaires, as eligible beneficiaries of emissions reductions payments.

Sergio Guzmán, the lead technical advisor for ACOFOP on climate change, played an important role in those efforts since joining the organization in 2012. “We did not win recognition through wishful thinking,” he said.

Download

The PDF in English.

This political win, underscored by the recent payment for results, is especially significant at a time when carbon markets are often controversial. Around the world, Indigenous peoples and forest communities continue to face rights violations as carbon markets expand. REDD+ projects and programs are frequently marked by inadequate or non-existent consultation, lack of access to unbiased legal and technical advice, unrecognized land rights—and, as a result, unclear carbon rights—as well as power imbalances in negotiations and unequal benefit sharing. In some cases, communities have been excluded from—or never consulted on—decisions, even when projects are located on or near their lands.

Guatecarbon stands out because it shows a different path that emerged from the territory and was guided by a community vision. It is a case where Indigenous and community forest managers designed and implemented a project from the ground up through internal organizing and building strong governance systems. Furthermore, they successfully influenced national law and secured formal recognition as ‘implementers’ of carbon reduction activities. Guatecarbon proves the value of Indigenous and community-led climate action, not only at the local level in protecting forests from deforestation, but in a way that advances national and global climate goals. As a result, the Guatecarbon case has become a reference point for many organizations in the region, on how communities can participate in carbon markets under fairer conditions.

Turning the Tide in Central America and Mexico

Not all Indigenous peoples and forest communities in Central America and Mexico (also known as Mesoamerica) are in the same political or technical position as those in Petén. Some face weaker legal protections, fewer technical resources, or more centralized government systems.

Rainforest Foundation US’s partner, the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB), and its members are closely tracking the expansion of carbon markets in their respective national contexts. They have also organized to close capacity gaps at the local level, supporting members in addressing the specific challenges they are facing, and equipping them to engage on equal footing in negotiations. This work aims to ensure that the design and benefit sharing agreements of programs and projects are equitable and fair.

The publication of The Comprehensive Guide on Rights and Transparency in Carbon Markets and REDD+ Projects (Guía Integral Sobre Derechos y Transparencia en Mercados de Carbono y Proyectos REDD+), a central tool developed by AMPB, captures the best practices and lessons learned for the effective engagement of communities in carbon markets written by and for Indigenous peoples and forest communities in Mesoamerica and across the world. AMPB has facilitated workshops using this guide with their members in Panama and Honduras (and in short order in Costa Rica and Guatemala as well). The organization is now seeking to formalize a dedicated certificate program to strengthen technical teams embedded with key capacities at the territorial level to more effectively respond to the proliferation of projects and programs within the local context.

Sergio has been one of these trainers, co-leading the workshops with AMPB in Panama and Honduras. AMPB has been able to leverage his knowledge and experience—and, by extension, that of ACOFOP—to strengthen the response of peer organizations in facing the growing presence of market players in their territories.

“Violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities in one REDD+ project do not always affect only them; if they keep happening, they can become a troubling trend with far-ranging impacts in the sector,” warns Sergio. “The same logic goes for effective solutions. The sooner we can share what works, what effective solutions look like, paired with adequate training and tools, the quicker those learnings can be replicated and applied to turn the tide towards equity.”

A Promise for Equity and Integrity in Carbon Markets

The experience of Guatecarbon offers a lesson for the future of carbon markets in the region. Even in complex political contexts, communities can begin by strengthening their own institutions, documenting their forest stewardship, and building technical capacity to participate in these mechanisms. Over time, this generates influence. Guatecarbon does not suggest that carbon markets are simple or risk-free. But it does show that when communities are organized and technically prepared to make decisions, they can influence national systems and help ensure that climate finance reaches the people who protect the forest best.

For community leaders like Erico, this process also involves shared responsibilities. From the communities’ perspective, the commitment is to manage resources transparently and strengthen the organizations that have protected the forest for decades. “It is up to us to make good use of the resources we have received from Guatecarbon,” he says. In his case, AFISAP was able to purchase the new 4×4 he was about to load his team and equipment into for their upcoming fieldwork, which was purchased to strengthen monitoring efforts in the territory, allowing them to reach areas farther within the concession. The funds also allowed them to fortify the monitoring tools they were about to deploy, such as camera traps, which are used to record biodiversity and detect threats like hunting and logging.

But he also emphasizes that the success of these mechanisms depends on a broader effort: the support of allies who have backed forest protection, and highlights the role of leaders and representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities. “Political will is needed to make the processes more agile and less bureaucratic.”

Erico hopes to pass his love for the forest on to his children, the way his parents once passed it on to him. He still remembers being a boy, walking into the woods alongside his mother and father during the chicle harvest. “We lived off the resources of the forest,” he says. Back then, they carried almost nothing—just cooking oil, salt, and sugar—because the rest could be found or grown along the way: fish pulled from the streams, corn, bananas, and sweet potatoes his family cultivated. Those early trips not only taught him how to survive in the forest, they taught him what the forest means, and why protecting it is inseparable from protecting the future of the communities that depend on it.

Now he goes out with his own children—all six of them—following familiar trails into the concession. On his family’s lands they have set up a simple camp, where they also raise chickens and pigs. When they pack for the journey, the list is nearly the same as it was in his childhood: cooking oil, salt, sugar. And one new thing, he adds with a small note of satisfaction—coffee.