According to Michael Painter, FYDEP had the following objectives: 1) To manage and build infrastructure to foment agricultural, industrial, and touristic development in Peten 2) To exploit the region's natural resources, except oil, for domestic and foreign markets 3) To sell land to landless countrymen for the production of basic grains and as a way to help reduce the political demands for land reform in the south 4) To place settlers in cooperatives along the western borders with Mexico to bar Mexican colonists from entering Peten and prevent Mexican construction of hydroelectric facilities near the border 5) To promote medium scale capitalized cattle ranching in central and south Peten.
Some attribute the neglect of sustainable development by the Guatemalan government to be a result of the close involvement of the military in State affairs, whose concerns in regards to the jungle were insurrections and lacked the know-how and interest in environmental protection.
FYDEP was disintegrated by the government in 1986 due to criticisms of its inability to control both the process of colonization and the growth of illegal logging practices, albeit, the damage to the region had already been done with the agricultural frontier quickly growing deeper north into the forest.
The different needs were met by dividing the MUZ into concessions that would be given to legally recognized entities that would determine the nature and extent of forest resource extraction within their respective area.
Community concession were determined to be the optimal way to settle disputes of how the newly granted protected status of the land would affect interest groups already living in northern Peten.
Once qualified, the recognized organization signs a contract with the Guatemalan government that lasts 25 years and allows the rational use of wood, the extraction on non-wood products, and development of tourism.
Community cohesion was questionable in most cases as a direct result of how unrelated to one another the groups were that constituted the “communities.” Many of these peoples, alliances, and new settlers simply banded together in order to qualify for a concession; therefore, had different, if not opposing, views on how forest areas should be managed.
For example, the “Peteneros,” or those that had moved to the region in the early 1920s and were regarded as the locals, relied primarily on the trade of chicle, xate, and mahogany and had been working the forest with no government interference and had developed illegal logging and migration networks with surrounding countries.
Other groups came into the region starting in the 1950s as part of the peasant migration initiated by the state-sponsored colonization effort and became ranchers, farmers, artisans, loggers, etc., with the prospect of land linking them together.
The Guatemalan government had also used the region as a way to appease the armed conflict by providing the land to displaced peasants, guerrilleros, and war refugees returning from Mexico that resulted from the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords.
ACOFOP played a crucial role in helping the communities attain legal statuses as associations, civil societies or even cooperatives in order to be eligible for concessions.
Although the certification from the FSC does not add value or open markets to concession products, it does help the community forestry framework maintain a “green image” by indicating strict rules for forest management.
Many of the forest fires that occur in the region are deliberate attempts by traffickers to clear areas for labs, runway strips, and grazing land for cattle used as a way to launder profits from the drug trade.