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PDF
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Type:
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Conference Paper |
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Author:
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Barsimantov, James; Antezana, J. Navia |
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Conference:
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Governing Shared Resources: Connecting Local Experience to Global Challenges, the Twelfth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Commons |
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Location:
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Cheltenham, England |
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Conf. Date:
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July 14-18, 2008 |
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Date:
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2008 |
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URI:
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https://hdl.handle.net/10535/2034
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Sector:
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Agriculture
Forestry
Social Organization |
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Region:
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Central America & Caribbean |
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Subject(s):
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land tenure and use
community forestry
indigenous institutions
deforestation
avacados
crops
common pool resources
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Abstract:
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"Rapid land use change in highland pine-oak forests of Michoacan, Mexico is due primarily to conversion of natural forests to avocado plantations. Many privately owned avocado orchards are found on land that was common forest before the 1992 Reform of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which allowed the division of common land under certain circumstances. In a region with widespread community forestry programs, some communities have maintained forest cover while adjacent communities have deforested extensively. We therefore ask how land use change was facilitated by policy changes that affected systems of common property management. We address this question in a comparative case study of four communities, two with active community forestry programs and two without. We conducted an analysis of land cover change using Landsat satellite imagery and applied interviews and household surveys in case study communities. Results show that 33.1% of forest cover was lost over a 16 year period across the avocado production region. However, the two forestry communities lost only 7.2% and 15.1% of forest cover, while the two non-forestry communities lost 86.5% and 92.4%, respectively. Interview data show that the Reform of Article 27 combined with the 1992 Forestry Law led to the collapse of local governance, illegal division of common forests, and illegal logging in the two non- forestry communities. It was not until several years later that land sales and orchard planting initiated, suggesting that these policy changes were an important catalyst of land use change. Household survey results show that the two forestry communities are slightly wealthier, better educated, less reliant on fuel wood, and have more work opportunities outside of the rural sector. In non-forestry communities, negative experiences with nonparticipatory forestry programs before 1990 may have led to illegal timber harvests following the Reform of Article 27."
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