Learning about REDD+: A morning in the Yucatan rainforest.

Our MEPs spent time in the Yucatan rain forest with local Mayan Community leaders. The reason for this visit: to understand how a REDD+ project works in practice. The key for success is for local communities to manage forests sustainably.

Members discussed the rights of local and indigenous populations, the need to protect the forest, but also to look after it, remove old wood (to prevent forest fires) and plant new trees. The challenge is to ensure that there is government support for these projects and that community based REDD+ project also allow a commercial sustainable forest management – in order to allow local populations to have a small income.

Kriton Arsenis speaks with Much' Kanan K'aax local community leader 

Euro MPs learned about how the local Mayan population live within the ecosystem in which they live in, and about the unique Mayan stingless bee – a source of income as well as crucial part of the local bio-system