Guatemala will bolster its national network of protected areas by improving its land registration system with a $22 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank.

The loan will enable Guatemala to provide legal and geographical certainty for the nationally managed areas that comprise the Guatemalan System of Protected Areas (SIGAP, for its acronym in Spanish) by establishing a state-of-the-art physical cadastre of these areas.

Guatemala has taken ambitious steps to protect its unique natural, cultural, and historical heritage. Protected areas and national parks under SIGAP cover 31 percent of the national territory. The SIGAP includes 241 protected areas officially established to safeguard biodiversity, scenic beauty and cultural conservation.

But lack of a cadastre and legal certainty concerning land ownership in Guatemala has led to land use disputes and environmental degradation in several protected areas. This is especially true in Guatemala's northern department of Petén, where forestry activity and pressure on natural resources is greater than in the southern part of the country.

The IDB loan will support the creation of a new cadastral database of protected areas, along with activities to strengthen legal certainty in protected areas. These will include technical support, interagency coordination, and use of cadastral and registry information.

The loan will allow Guatemala to provide for territorial assessments, private property registry assessments in the protected areas, information dissemination strategies related to each protected area, the physical demarcation of the limits of the protected areas with monuments and signage and classification and demarcation of internal protection zones.

This program will follow the land regularization work plans formulated by the Cadastral Information Registry of Guatemala (RIC for its acronym in Spanish), which were launched in the 10 protected areas of in the northern region of Petén, followed by 11 protected areas in the southern region.

The IDB loan is made up of a US$17.6 million loan for 30 years, with a six-year grace period, and a US$4.4 million loan for 40 years, with a 40-year grace period.