The Ecomadera Project: Marketing Community Forestry in Ecuador
Case Study C0168
[edit]
| Date | August 2005 |
| Agency | Fundacion Jatun Sacha, Pinchot Institute for Conservation, United States Peace Corps, US Forest Service (USFS) |
| Donor/support agency | Overbrook Foundation USAID |
| Project type | Implemented by agency |
| Context(s) | indigenous territory |
| Geographic coverage | Ecuador |
| Biodiversity focus | Forest ecosystem |
| Development focus | Local communities |
| Conservation goals | Conserve forest resources |
| Poverty reduction goals | Help communities develop profitable and sustainable forest management strategies |
Summary
The Ecomadera Project is a five-year partnership between four organizations (Fundacion Jatun Sacha, Ecuador; Pinchot Institute for Conservation, United States; United States Peace Corps; and the US Forest Service) to develop, test, and disseminate a new model for forest conservation and rural economic development in Ecuador. Ecomadera helps campesino and indigenous communities with large forest landholdings to make the transition from forest exploitation to the sustainable management of productive forests. It helps communities establish nurseries and agroforestry plantations on failing farmland. In addition, Ecomadera helps communities establish businesses that produce high-quality wood products and that access markets as close to the final consumer as possible. The goal of the project is help poor rural communities conserve their valuable forest resources and build a sustainable local economy by creating new jobs in forestry, wood processing, marketing, and business administration, and by paying landowners considerably higher prices for legal timber so that they can generate higher levels of income while harvesting fewer trees. By creating businesses and skilled jobs in woodworking and forestry that pay higher wages than illegally harvesting timber, Ecomadera hopes to slow the rate of unsustainable timber harvesting in Ecuador.
Conservation impact
Three community foresters were trained and are now working full-time for Ecomadera. They have completed eight legal forest management plans, four legal farm harvest plans, have overseen the building of a community nursery that produces large quantities of more than two dozen tree species, and have established six agroforestry plantations in former cattle pastures.
Poverty reduction impact
The following are some of the numerous accomplishments achieved by the project to date: three community foresters were trained and are now working full-time for Ecomadera; a professional wood processing facility was built; hired carpenters have helped the community develop several kinds of products; campesino landowners are earning 60% more for legal wood than they can get in the illegal markets, so there is a strong demand from landowners to gain legal forest management plans; Ecomadera Verde SA, a registered community business with 17 shareholders, was created.
Strategy for Conservation/Poverty Linkages
Provision of alternative livelihoods
Local conservation enterprise opportunities
Reference 1
http://www.eco-index.org/search/results.cfm?projectID=911
Reference 2
http://www.pinchot.org
More information
Peter Pinchot
Phone: +570/296-9313
E-mail: peterpin@aol.com
Related records above this one:
- United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (Organisation O0100)