About 14,000 residents have formal rights covering 400,000 hectares of the reserve
By Chris Arsenault
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Residents of northern Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, an area of lush jungle and historical ruins, are far better at protecting the forest from fires when they have formal land rights, researchers said on Thursday.
The 2.1 million-hectare nature reserve in northern Guatemala is under threat from forest fires, drug traffickers and cattle barons, researchers said in a study.
Using satellite images, researchers analysed the severity of this year's forest fires on reserve land, comparing areas of the park where local communities have formal land rights with areas where residents lack them.
Climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency and severity of forest fires in much of the world, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
Researchers say Thursday's study shows that land rights for local people in nature reserves help nations respond to the increased danger from fires.
"Communities with land rights are better organized - their livelihoods are intertwined with the forests," said Andrew Davis, a researcher with the PRISMA Foundation, the El Salvador-based think tank that produced the study.
About 14,000 residents have formal rights covering 400,000 hectares of the reserve, he said. These rights allow them to use, manage and patrol reserve land, but they cannot buy or sell it.
Only 1 percent of the 8,000 forest fires in the reserve tracked this year by researchers happened inside of land formally controlled by local communities, Davis said.
"In the community concessions people have to follow strict guidelines to prevent fires," Davis told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that communities who formally control the land are also better able to patrol the territory to keep intruders out.
Foreign observers backed the study's findings.
"I have traveled through the community concessions, and I have been struck by the deep commitment of communities to conserving their forests," Stefano Gatto, the European Union's ambassador to Guatemala, said in a statement.
"By giving these communities concessions over their lands, the government has given them the reason and motivation to fight the destruction."
(Reporting by Chris Arsenault @chrisarsenaul, Editing by Alisa Tang. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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