By ROGER HAMILTON, Flores, Guatemala

If Yellowstone has problems, consider Guatemala's Petén forest. This vast sea of green, harboring an astonishing number of plant and animal species, many found nowhere else in the world, in many respects exemplifies the problems of conserving biodiversity in the tropics. On paper, many of its prime spots have been reserved for protection, the largest of which is the 15,553-square-km Maya Biosphere Reserve. But enforcement is weak or nonexistent, and the calls of birds and monkeys are increasingly being replaced by the whine of chainsaws.

The Petén's biodiversity faces an additional problem. After three decades of civil strife, Guatemala is taking bold steps to forge a long-term peace and build a democratic society. Former combatants have traded their arms for plows and must now find land to farm to support their families. There is very little left in highlands, so when they look toward the seemingly "empty" Petén, they see a land of opportunity.

Even before the recent settlement surge, the forest was being converted to smoke and charred earth at the rate of 75,000 hectares annually. The Petén's population was growing at a yearly rate of more than 9 percent, much higher than the national average.

It might seem that the Petén is headed for the same fate that is befalling so many other tropical forests elsewhere in the region. But a group of far-sighted people have set out to prove otherwise. They are betting that the Petén, as a repository of biological as well as cultural riches, has the economic potential to buy its own protection.

What the Petén has going for it is neatly summed up in a patch of forest near the village of Crude dos Aguadas. Luis Felipe LŪpez pushes aside a wall of vines and palm fronds and sets down a sack filled with what he called "botanicals." Carefully chosen leaves, seedpods and other forest gleanings, these are the raw materials for scented potpourris destined for sale in New York and London. Elsewhere, other communities are supplementing their incomes by collecting and selling such nontimber products as allspice, chicle for chewing gum, foliage for flower arrangements, and palm nuts for oil.

LŪpez is joined by his companions in front of a little hill, trees clinging to its steep sides. Underneath the thin soil lies another untapped but potentially valuable forest resource: an ancient Mayan pyramid. It is part of a temple complex, one of hundreds throughout the Petén, and the potential basis for a greatly expanded tourism industry. The Mayan civilization that built it flourished here for hundreds of years, and then disappeared, apparently the victim of social and ecological dislocation.

The same fate must not befall the Petén forest. One of those working to ensure that this doesn't happen is Marco Palacios, one of the principal designers of a sustainable development program being funded with the help of $19.8 million in IDB financing.

Palacios is no ivory tower official. He works out of a modest whitewashed building in the dusty town of Santa Elena, where he has just met with a group of people who had a dispute with a large landowner. "It doesn't have anything to do with the sustainable development program itself," he explained. "But I try to help with these things, and maybe the people will do something for us later on."

Ebullient, optimistic, Palacios will need all the people skills he can muster to help forge a compact between the Petén's local population and its natural and archeological resources, all the while in a tinderbox environment of rapid social change.

The strategy of the program is to give people a stake in the forest. One way is by legalizing land tenure for up to 4,500 families that have settled in the buffer zone contiguous to the Maya Biosphere Reserve. By doing so, the local people will have the legal standing to participate in land-use decisions, as well as the incentive to manage their resources sustainably.

The new program is also helping to create new sources of income. For example, developing archeological sites and helping local communities to provide tourism infrastructure will bring in tourist dollars.

The program will also fund pilot projects to show how diversifying agricultural production can increase income. "In the Petén, everyone grows corn, because that's their culture," said Palacios. "That's all they know." But while corn is fine for subsistence, growing vegetables would earn them five times the income, he said.

"Conservation is possible only if people have alternative ways to make a living," said Palacios. "We have to relegate the idea of conservation for conservation's sake to the museums." In the end, the people must decide. "They are the ones who ultimately have to manage the resources," he said. "In this very fluid, difficult situation, they must provide the solutions."

And so in packed schoolhouses throughout the Petén, farmers, teachers, mayors and ranchers are meeting with officials to learn how they can shape the new program. Each person comes with his own set of interests, but during the give and take of the meetings, most end up identifying with the larger undertaking. This voluntary evolution from individual to collective agendas is a source of inspiration to Palacios. "It's a process that gives you goose bumps," he says.

But time is running out. Palacios took an old volume down from his bookshelf and turned to an aerial photo showing the edge of a forest that seemed to be drawn with a ruler. It was the northern boundary of the Department of Petén, which is also the national border with Mexico, protected on one side, open to settlement on the other. "The border is not so clear anymore," he said.

Given the Peten's value and the precariousness of its status, the number of nongovernmental organizations active there is not surprising. In fact, in the island town of Flores, a short drive across the causeway from Palacio's office, there is a section informally called "NGO row." One NGO, ProPetén, administered by Conservation International, is already knee deep in the job of making sustainable development a reality.

ProPetén is working with community groups to establish microenterprises that gather and sell nontimber forest products. Its strategy is to first participate as a partner, helping to finance production facilities and establish markets. Then, once the business is up and running, ProPetén sells its shares and the business obtains its own financing.

One such microenterprise is the potpourri cooperative in Crude dos Aguadas. In one building, a group of women stand around a slowly revolving lazy susan divided into compartments. Each holds a particular type and color of botanical, which they deftly arrange into the final product. "No artificial anything," said center manager Carlos AcuŅa. Yellow comes from a root, purple from a kind of wood, and red from the bark of a tree. The scents are natural oils.

While a small operation, the potpourri shop has become a welcome source of additional income for the 10 people who work in the processing center and the 30 others who collect the botanicals. Some 70 percent of the workers are women.

The cooperative sold nearly 10,000 potpourris for more than $36,000 in the year ending June 1996, according to Marvin Segura, ProPetén business manager. Now it will expand into the national market.

Not far away, members of a second ProPetén-supported group are working to turn the oil from the fruits of the cohune palm into a source of income.

Manuel de Jes™s SantamarĢa and several neighbors from the community of La M·quina picked up the walnut-sized fruits and tossed them into a burlap sack. SantamarĢa selected a nut, smashed open its hard shell between two rocks, and offered a piece of the white meat. It tasted like coconut, only more oily.

SantamarĢa's group first sold its cohune nut oil on a small-scale, subsidized basis. When it became clear that the product had a real commercial future, they decided to purchase machinery that would enable them to process 40 tons of nuts a month. By then it was time for ProPetén to reduce its participation and for the committee to turn itself into a full-fledged cooperative and apply for a loan. With a $50,000 credit from Fondo Maya, a conservation fund managed by ProPetén, the cooperative built a production center.

ProPetén director Carlos Sosa is encouraged by such success stories. But as someone who works in the front lines, his enthusiasm is tempered with realism. In particular, he is apprehensive that the influx of newcomers to the Petén will jeopardize the fragile successes his group has achieved.

"Before, we could define projects by communities," he said. "But in the past two years in just one area, the Laguna del Tigre National Park, 10 new communities have been established. "They regard it as the land of nobody, where anyone can go and do whatever they want. They help themselves to what they need. Where are we going to get the resources to attend to these people?"

Sosa doesn't have the answers. He recognizes how difficult it is to build peace and create a democracy in such a delicate, highly politicized context. The best course for NGOs like ProPetén is to leave decisions in the hands of the communities. But even following this course, setbacks can be serious and tragic. Last year, Sosa had to deliver the eulogy at the funeral for a community leader who was murdered, probably because of his role in getting the government to recognize an extractive reserve where local people could harvest forest products.

"We have to forget for the moment the idea of a park," said Sosa, "where you can't touch a leaf or pick a fruit. Now more than ever, conservation means working with people. People have to take ownership."