Guatemala PINFOR / PROBOSQUE National Forest Incentives

Guatemala's National Forest Incentives Programme was established by Forestry Law 101-96 and is administered by the National Forest Institute (INAB). Its first cycle, PINFOR, ran 1996-2016; a second 30-year cycle, PROBOSQUE, has run since 2015.

The programme incentivises plantation establishment, agroforestry systems, natural forest management and degraded-land restoration, with PROBOSQUE adding explicit targets for carbon sequestration, watershed protection, fire-resilient landscape restoration and agroforestry diversification.

Participation is voluntary; INAB disburses payments annually upon technical verification of enrolled parcels. The scheme is financed through a dedicated national forest fund and is documented in Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and World Bank country programme reviews.

PINFOR (1996-2016) distributed approximately USD 260 million to 4.3 million beneficiaries through ~38,000 projects covering over 363,000 hectares. PROBOSQUE (2015-present) added 64,000 new contracts, bringing combined enrolment across both programmes to nearly 600,000 hectares. A peer-reviewed evaluation (IOP Environmental Research Letters, 2023) found PINFOR sites achieved 8.3% greater forest cover and 5.7% taller canopy height relative to matched control areas. US Forest Service research documented the programme's contribution to wildfire-risk reduction through landscape-level fuel restructuring in participating forests.

Twenty-eight years of continuous statutory operation, annual technical verification, and independent review by the World Bank FCPF and a peer-reviewed matched-control study give the programme a comparatively strong evidence base among national forest-incentive schemes.