1. Rural income and forest dependence –some evidence from Guatemala
Pablo Prado
CIFOR, 25th March 2009

2. Context Montane conifer forests of Central America 2567-3600 m a.s.l.
Rain 825± ±260
Area approx. 1,000 sqkm
12 villages, 996 hh, sample 271193147
7122 inhabitants, 5 persons/hh

3. Household income sources
Total
Cash
Sh_cash
Subsistence
Sh_sub
Direct forest 13 85
Forest derived 63 42
Fish
Non-forest environmental 98 2
Aquaculture
Crop 65 26
Livestock -6
110
Payment for forest services
Other
Wage
Business

5. Trends by quarter

6. Seasonality

7. Key forest and environmental products
Total income
Ti_share
Cash income
Ci_share
Subsistence income
Si_share
Direct forest income
Firewood
204749
65.05
12.02
87.98
Forest litter
87258
27.72
3.07
96.93
Forest derived income
Sawnwood
136998
89.26
45.96
54.04
Non-forest environmental income
Fodder grass
49498
97.25
96.86
1552.5
3.14
Other types of income
Payment for forest services
2617
100

8. Income composition and poverty

9. Other patterns
Although very few hhs (8.96%) reported to have used forest productos to weather misfortune, they either did nothing (25.93%), spent cash savings (16.67%), received assitance from friends and relatives (16.67%), harvested more forest products (11.11%), harvested more agricultural products (11.11%) or harvested more wild products from the forest (1.85%).

10. Other patterns cont´d
No evidence of forest products as stepping stones out of poverty, and very weak correlations between closeness to markets and forest income (DFI and DtM, 0.195; and FDI and DtM, ).
Subsistence peasant economies with irregular market articulations by means of agricultural products.

11. Policies and overall findings
Regular subsistence users
Interdependence between forest conservation and both subsistence and small scale commercial agriculture
Firewood and leaf litter are the centrepiece for the local subsistence strategies
Income assymetrically ditributed