El Salvador is advancing its efforts to evaluate the ecological status of forests and coffee agroecosystems, through the development of specialized monitoring tools and inter-institutional cooperation. The initiative, led by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) with the support of the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), marks a significant step toward sustainable land use and biodiversity conservation.

As part of this project, MARN recently hosted two technical workshops aimed at establishing ecological reference thresholds to classify the conservation status of forested areas and agroforestry systems, particularly those linked to El Salvador’s coffee-growing regions. These thresholds are critical to understanding ecosystem health and guiding long-term sustainability strategies.

The workshops involved ecosystem specialists and technicians who utilized participatory methodologies grounded in data from the National Forest Inventory. With this baseline in place, MARN will now move to expand sampling coverage across the country, validate ecological data, and design a Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system to implement a national ecological condition index.

The collaborative event gathered stakeholders from multiple institutions, including the Ministries of Environment, Economy, and Agriculture, the Environmental Investment Fund of El Salvador (FIAES), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Salvadoran Coffee Institute (ISC)—underscoring a unified approach to environmental monitoring and sustainable coffee production.

This initiative strengthens El Salvador’s environmental governance framework and reflects its commitment to climate resilience, forest conservation, and sustainable agriculture.