This highland area is characterized by poverty and out migration but also considerable social cohesion. Building on strong social capital will be vital to improving natural capital. Livelihoods and Landscapes will concentrate its activities here, aiming to restore the multi-functionality of forest resources.
 
Community based planning and action will seek to increase forest cover, forest connectivity and the benefit flows from forest resources that have potential to tackle rural poverty. Critical to this will be facilitating the access of the forest dependent communities, particularly women, to government reforestation incentives, a challenge which is intimately connected to understanding and clarifying complex tenure arrangements in the area. As well as community organizations, Livelihoods and Landscapes will work with government forests and regional partners such as CATIE and PRISMA.
 
At a national level, Livelihoods and Landscapes will formulate recommendations to better implement regional agreements on forest governance and on combating illegal logging.