Green Balam Forests
Green Balam Forests was founded after three decades of witnessing the vast forests of Guatemala’s Petén district being cut down, burned and otherwise unsustainably managed. Creation of the Maya Biosphere Reserve through international cooperation and introduction of the concept of community owned, sustainably harvested forestry concessions within the Biosphere established legal limits as to what extent deforestation would be permitted.
Nevertheless, fire, cattle ranches, and settlers encroach and threaten the protected core areas while forest cover within the designated buffer zone steadily diminishes. This leads to warming, loss of surface water, and conversion of rainforest to savannah.
Apart from our goals in forest restoration and conservation, we want to demonstrate that agroforestry coupled with income from forestry incentive programs provides more profit, job opportunities and training than conventional agricultural practices such as cattle ranching.
Currently, we are managing 55 hectares of land at Xibalba site and expecting to grow.
Sebastian De la Hoz
CO-FOUNDER
is a life-long professional guide specializing in wildlife, archaeology and hiking tours within the core areas and archaeologial sites of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. He grew up within the rainforest of what has become Yax-ha National Park and now has degrees in forestry and economics.
Scott Forsythe
CO-FOUNDER
has been living within short ranges of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in several capacities since 1986. He went to Germany for a degree in environmental and recourse management, returning to become involved in Guatemalan agroforestry.
Check our range of services
Forestry management plan
Forestry project establishment
Forestry project management
Wildlife monitoring
