They have a strong emphasis on forest conservation - while settlers can cultivate their own individual plots, they cannot sell them.

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Its 500 producers, who speak only Keqchi and Pokomchi, grow coffee and cardamom on shady forested plots in the buffer zone of the magnificent cloud forest of Sierra de las Minas.

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"Much of the world's population in North America, Europe, most of China and large portions of Russia live near temperate forests, so what happens in these forests has global importance, " said Jerry Franklin, a professor of forest resources at the University of Washington whose work was instrumental in maintaining the research plots.

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