CICAFOC has been founded by a small number of community leaders to respond to the desires and needs of local indigenous, peasant and afro-descendent populations to exchange experiences and knowledge as well as to develop shared activities leading to the achievement of their goals.

At that time, indigenous, peasant and afro-descendent populations set their focus on forestry activities, developing this way different initiatives related to community forestry. A first major meeting among various Central American organizations took place on April 1991 under the name of “Seminar on peasant participation in the decisional and management process of natural resources” (Seminario de participaci?n campesina en el proceso de toma de decisiones y manejo de los recursos naturales). The meeting, [-] held in Costa Rica and coordinated by the national forest peasant board with the economic and logistical support of FAO, the Department of Peasant and Forest Development, and the Forest Department of Costa Rica, included 31 representatives of 13 forestry organizations of the following countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

After this first meeting, these and other forestry organizations of the region supported through the FAO’s Forest, Trees, and People Program (FTPP), organized several shared activities to discuss different subjects concerning forest development in rural Central American communities.