The Community La 23, Sancti Spiritus, is one of the mountainous rural communities of Guamuhaya massif, Central Cuba. There are 284 inhabitants in 135 families. The main employment source is the production of coffee and forestry. Mainly men are hired permanently, while women (101) only accede temporary employments in the coffee harvest, since September until December. The cultural level is low; most of people have 9ne degree. The lack of employments and a stable wage that sustain economically their families forces them to find a solution of their problems. That is when they turn to the forest, source of resources, being the main activities that carry out the illegal timber cuts, the furtive hunt, the poaching of parrots and parakeets chicks, as well as the contamination of river waters to facilitate the fishing of the fresh water prawn Macrobrachium sp., and vascular epiphytes recollection. All these activities are illegal and penalized, however the demand of these products is very high in Trinidad, eminently touristic city and the main receptor of these products. The high prices that pay for them, at short term, are a solution of the economic problems of the mountaineers who carry out these activities in a surreptitious way. However, at the same time communitarians have realized that resources are scarcer in the forest and wonder why and what can they do to make sustainable the use of biodiversity.

The present proposal is focused on local empowerment through a capacity building training based on the inquiry cycle, where people, with the first hand experience and after a reflection on gathered information, can find the solution to common environmental problems and create options to solved them with their own resources in order to ensure sustainability to their activities. It is organized in workshops to enhance sustainability diversifying the recreational options and services of protected areas and the epiphytic garden; to monitor vascular epiphytic endangered species in protected areas; to elaborate project proposals to accede to different financial funds; to elaborate micro-enterprise expedient proposals according to the new national opportunities to promote new jobs. The Epiphytic Garden at Community La 23 is a creative and participatory initiative of communitarians interested on vascular epiphytes conservation. The garden is an ideal scenario to implement the solutions resulted from workshops that promote the production of ecosystems goods and services to reach the genuine and sustainable local development.