The activities of the Agroforestry Project began in 1974 with an agroforestry development initiative for Guatemala. Over a 25-year implementation period, the initiative attempted to propitiate community forestry development as an alternative for appropriate management of basic resources such as soil, water and forests. In 1988 the success of the project brought international attention when the World Resources Institute (WRI) recommended that the firm Applied Energy Services (AES) finance the PNO3 Agroforestry Project in order to compensate for the emissions from AES's new energy plant fueled by the burning of Carbon. In 1989 AES signed an Agreement Memorandum with CARE, stating that they (AES) would give CARE an endowment of $2 million for a period of 10 years. CARE would use the interest earned on the capital for implementing a series of activities oriented toward land use that would compensate for the Carbon emissions.

Upon finalizing the first phase of the project, a second phase, entitled Integrated Forest Management Project (IFM), is being proposed. The proposed IFM project constitutes a continuation of the agroforestry activities based on the lessons learned and the recommendations from programmatic as well as WRI and Winrock International evaluations. This information is incorporated into a framework of institutional planning that assures effective and long- term results along with social benefits.

The objectives of the IFM project are the following: 1) reduce the level of poverty of 29,162 families from 271 communities in 23 Municipalities from 5 Departments through increases in forestry and agricultural productivity on 121,000 ha of land through implementing activities related to the use and appropriate management of soil and forests and; 2) promote the technologies of sustainable use of soil and forests that contribute to the improvement of air quality through the long term offset of Carbon in the produced and/or protected biomass that results from project activities.

As stated above, the IFM Project interventions will be geographically focused in 5 Departments of Guatemala and will be implemented in 271 communities from 23 Municipalities. The IFM Project will focus on the upper region as well as the head of the following watersheds identified as being highly vulnerable to degradation of soil and forest resources in the Western Highlands of Guatemala:--the Cuilco, Chixoy and Motagua Rivers as well as Lake Atitln

The IFM project interventions will be geographically focalized in 5 Departments of Guatemala and will be implemented in 271 communities from 23 Municipalities. The principal criteria utilized in the geographic focalization of the IFM project activities are:
•    the geographic areas of the Agroforestry and the PROMESA Projects, allowing CARE to build on previous successes; q the interventions of the IFM project will be focalized in the upper region as well as the watershed head of the watersheds identified as being highly vulnerable to the degradation of soil and forest resources in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. These areas include the watersheds of the Cuilco, Chixoy and Motagua Rivers as well as Lake Atitln;
•    the logistics, cost-effectiveness and efficiency based on lessons learned and; a complementary focus of the interventions that could be coordinated and/or sequenced in order to exploit the reaching of the goals defined between the project and the PROMESA program.

Financial Requirements: The overall cost of the project for a 10-year period is US $2,000,000