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Natural Resource Management – 2006

The Government agreed to step up efforts to preserve the nation’s rain forests in exchange for debt forgiveness from the United States.¹

2007: At most, the natural resource use provision of the accord was poorly implemented. Institutions established to redistribute land and provide indigenous people access to land were ineffective. Multinational corporations were established and exploited natural resources. These corporations, however, faced resistance in certain indigenous areas over the ownership and protection of natural resources.²

1. Marc Lacey, “U.S. To Cut Guatemala’s Debt for Not Cutting Trees,” The New York Times, October 2, 2006, Section A:4.
2. Maria Giovana Teijido and Wiebke Schram, “Guatemala’s Indigenous Women in Resistance: On the Frontline of the Community Struggle to Defend Mother Earth and her Natural Assets,” PBI, May 2010, accessed May 29, 2012, http://www.pbi-guatemala.org/fileadmin/user_files/projects/guatemala/fil…17, 27.