29.05.2026
For thirty years, indigenous communities in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve have been managing their forests under FSC certification. On Tuesday morning at the Carrefour, their timber — and their story — comes to Nantes for the very first time.
On Tuesday 2 June, the Carrefour International du Bois opens with a roundtable that has been years in the making. From 9:30 to 11:00 in Canopée 2, ATIBT and Rainforest Alliance host a session dedicated to FSC-certified community forestry from the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala — a region where forest management is not just a certification exercise, but a way of life rooted in three decades of sustained community effort.
The session is facilitated by José Roman Carrera, Forestry Director at Rainforest Alliance, and brings together a high-level Guatemalan delegation including managers from ACOFOP (Association of Forest Communities of Petén) and FORESCOM, the community forestry enterprise supplying certified tropical hardwoods to international buyers. Carlos Estrada and Jorge Cruz (Rainforest Alliance) will present the sustainability performance and landscape-level outcomes achieved over ten years. Javier Fernandez (COPADE) will offer market intelligence on how Selva Maya species are perceived in Europe, where buyer appetite for FSC-certified, traceable tropical timber is growing, even as the range of species on offer remains insufficiently known.
The roundtable explores questions increasingly central to the sector: how can timber from community-owned, FSC-certified concessions find its place in demanding European markets? What are the barriers — technical, commercial, regulatory — and what practical strategies are emerging to address them? The EUDR implications for Central American concession timber will also be on the table, alongside collective branding approaches. Bastien Suteau (ConForMa project, CIRAD) closes the session with key takeaways and next steps for Selva Maya's engagement with European markets.
This event is organised by ATIBT and Rainforest Alliance within the ConForMa project — 'Towards Concerted Forest Management of the Future in the Maya Biosphere Reserve' — led by CIRAD and funded by the French Global Environment Facility (FFEM/AFD). The Guatemalan delegation will also be present throughout the three days of the fair at the ATIBT stand (I27, Hall XXL).
Organised by ATIBT , CIRAD and Rainforest Alliance · ConForMa project, funded by FFEM/AFD
Interpretation: French / English / Spanish
Contact: info@atibt.org
