Supporting Adaptation through Productive Landscape Restoration: From Farmers to Policies Implemented by Rainforest Alliance

The Productive Landscape Restoration (PLR) approach, which involves multiple ecosystem-based adaptation principles, presents an opportunity to reduce climate vulnerability and has been identified as such in existing national and departmental strategies. In the context of a rapidly changing climate, with increased aridity and drought threats, there is an already intensified pressure on natural ecosystems in Peten, Guatemala’s largest department and home to nearly 30% of the country’s forest cover, where intensive cattle ranching and crop production systems have significantly transformed forest land.

Through this project, results of the pilot implementation of PLR through agroforestry and silvopastoral systems will be documented, subnational governments will be supported to incorporate PLR into their territorial development legal frameworks. By quantifying specific investment requirements and gathering evidence-based data on expected medium and long-term returns, it is expected to generate easily accessible documents to promote the adoption of good practices by a greater number and a diverse range of producers, while also working with municipal and departmental governments.

Project Status

Initial actions by the project include the design of two training programs: one for producers, enabling them to learn from other producers’ experiences, and the other for decision makers, aiming to incorporate productive landscape restoration (PLR) into land use planning as a strategy for climate change adaptation. After the 2023 municipal elections, the project is transitioning from its start-up to the implementation phase. During this phase, ongoing PLR activities will be presented, taken from assessments that were conducted on farms that are already implementing such approaches.