by Joy Houston

An indispensable marketing tool for women in Guatemala is a sturdy basket to carry food home for the family. For Rainforest Alliance the marketing tool is a seal of certification.

Top: Processing chicle sap in Uaxactún.
Middle: Jickling is certification systems manager for SmartWood.
Bottom: Xate palm collected in Uaxactún, Petén for sale to florists in Europe and the U.S.

“To use the seal on its product,” says Jon Jickling, speaking for Rainforest Alliance, “a company must meet certain social and environmental requirements.” The not-forprofit organization, established in 1987, is based in New York and currently works in over 50 countries, including Guatemala. Its goal is to improve land use and business practices around the world by offering services such as certification. The Alliance has two certification programs: the Sustainable Agriculture program, working with bananas, coffee, cacao and cut flowers, and SmartWood, working in forestry. In Guatemala the Rainforest Alliance certification seal appears on Isabel coffee and a variety of wood products from the Petén.

The programs are completely voluntary, says Jickling. “We focus on developing good management practices, such as how to grow coffee while protecting forests and wildlife and how to treat employees well. We provide technical assistance but don’t have research facilities. Rather, we develop standards and provide an independent third-party audit of those standards.” It works like this: A company or state agency interested in evaluating its management and improving its markets seeks an endorsement of its product and applies for certification. It hires Rainforest Alliance who uses independent auditors to assess the operation and determine if the company meets defined social and environmental standards. The programs are primarily funded by fee-for-service and with support from donors such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Jickling is certification systems manager for SmartWood, which is accredited by the Forestry Stewardship Council. SmartWood works with communities who manage forests to improve their international markets and bring better prices. In a twist of not seeing the forest for the trees, he says, “We encourage communities to manage their products carefully and not just look at the wood.” Jickling, referring to xate, a small palm now an important crop in the Petén that is exported for use in floral arrangements, says, “The Uaxactún community earns as much from the palm as from timber.” Other certified non-timber forest products include the sap from chicle trees used in chewing gum and hierba mate, a tea from the leaf of a tree. “Communities in Nepal have just certified medicinal plants and aromatic plants of the forest for perfume,” he adds.

No doubt about it, the mahogany and cedar of Guatemala forests are coveted for their quality and command top dollar prices. Rumor has it that Prince Charles of England has it in his bathroom at Buckingham Palace. Also, the wood is preferred by makers of top-of-the-line guitars, who have chosen to buy Rainforest Alliance certified wood.

But Jickling points out that there are 50 to 80 other species of trees that grow abundantly. SmartWood has been able to assist certified communities to get orders for those woods to be used, for example, in decking and wheelbarrow handles. “We have buyers who are interested in making the link with the communities. It’s pretty exciting to get rid of the middle men and at the same time see improvement in the forest,” he says. By recognizing and harvesting all the products available, logging can be rotated and controlled, thus managing and conserving the forest and everything in it for continued resources in the future. And producing finished products adds further value to the resources.

The communities benefit from the increased market access and higher prices that the Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood seal bring and often use revenues for development projects such as schools and water systems.

Jickling, whose parents live in La Antigua Guatemala, is in his element in the woods. “I was a USAID brat,” he laughs. He lived in Guatemala for seven years and went to high school in Bolivia. “I always liked the outdoors and studied forestry at the University of Michigan.” He spent three years with the Peace Corps in Ecuador and then worked in Haiti “getting them to plant trees” and in Bolivia managing natural resource products. Jickling now lives with his wife and four children on a 20-acre homestead in Vermont.

Aligning his philosophy with his work, Jickling says certification is similar to fair trade. He would like to see a preference for certified products that reflect environmental and social protections with every coffee purchase and every time a new school is built or “a boardwalk is replaced in New Jersey.”