Avoided deforestation in the Marqués de Comillas region
Since 2001, AMBIO has added to its objectives, to help avoid deforestation and offer alternatives to achieve the permanence of primary tropical forests in the Marqués de Comillas municipality, Chiapas. The socio-environmental importance of this region stands out due to the indigenous groups that inhabit it, the high risk of deforestation, the endangered biodiversity (large mammals and tropical trees) and the important carbon deposits in these forests due to their great age and size of its arboreal individuals.
To this end, AMBIO has carried out various activities with the active participation of 207 peasant families (including men, women, young people and older adults) from three communities in the region. These activities include: strengthening the environmental awareness of local people; training aimed at the sustainable management of forests and natural resources; the training of environmental promoters (women and men); the fencing of forest areas to prevent the uncontrolled entry of livestock, and training in fire control. Meanwhile, training is being carried out for the management of agroforestry systems and for forest restoration with the aim of having trees closer and thus avoiding their extraction from important for conservation forest areas.
Since 2006, monitoring has been carried out to understand and improve the impact that these activities have had on the state of the region's forests. With very positive results for the conservation in good condition of approximately 3,440 hectares of tropical forest in the region. The sale of carbon credits from the avoided emissions in this region are considered ex-post credits and support the continuity of these activities.
