Sustainable Development in Mexican Forests

1. Sustainable Development in Mexican Forests

2. Why should we care? • Benefits • alternative economic/livelihoods strategy to migration to cities, Maquiladoras, or US • Supports the ecological benefits of forest • Mexico’s situation is unique and worthy of a deeper exploration as a case study example for other Latin American and developing countries. • Incipient and endangered by state and international economic policies • forest development has not yet assuaged poverty or environmental conservation

3. Wood Products Exports and Imports--2001 • Imports: $2,034,272,000 • Exports: $185,851,008

4. Historical background1500-1900 • Spanish conquest: dispossession of land • 19th C: liberalism: more dispossession • Porfiriato: intensified dispossession • Mexican Revolution: primary cause was land distribution

5. Cardenas: Three trends1934-1940 • Land redistribution to peasants • 18 million hectares (45 million acres)—800,000 recipients • (b)   Ejido share of cultivated land: 15% in 1930 47% by 1940 • (c)    Forest lands: 1.5 % in 1930 18% in 1940 • Land reform did not touch holdings of foreign and national logging companies • “rentismo” • Miguel de Quevedo: professionalized conservation • END RESULT: Nobody followed it, but evasion was worse than managed development

6. 1949-1976ISI Forestry and ‘Productionism” • 1949-1958: Concessions to big integrated forestry firms • Inequalities breed rural unrest • Two simultaneous policies • Land distribution expanded. • “Productionism” • in the end: Neither environmental nor social objectives achieved

7. The Rise of Community Forestry • As early as 1960: supporters envision production with conservation “sustainable development” • Gov’t development projects experiment • Quintana Roo • Late 1970’s: Concessions set to expire: communities organize regionally to exert pressure on de la Madrid “we will no longer permit our natural resources to be wasted, since they are the patrimony of our children” • 1986 forestry law:

8. Percent of Timber from Community Managed Forests Commercial Timber Milled Timber 1976 2-3 Na 1980 17 Na 1992 40 15 Source: Klooster. 2003

9. Social and Environmental impacts of forest management • Michoacan community: logging, sawmill, furniture factory • Oaxaca: 95 communities • Quintana Roo • Benefits not limited to exceptionally well managed communities

10. Community Forestry under Neoliberal Reforms: • Context: Much success, but a long way to go with the need for public support • 1992 Forestry Act: modifications to Article 27: devolution of control to the communities but neglect of support • Plantation policy: Inequality and stagnation

11. Response to Neoliberalism • Unprecedented debate during early 1990’s • movement of social reformers into gov. forestry • growing vulnerability of PRI • Zapatistas? • 1997 Forestry Plan • PRODEFOR

15. Forest Ownership in Mexico Ejidos and Comm. Agrarias (8000-9000) 70-80% Small Properties, 15-20 hectares 15-20% Protected Areas/Parks 5-10% Mexican Forests, 2003

16. Fox Administration • Comisión Nacional Forestal • 2x funding for commercial plantations • Neoliberalism favors TNCs, not forest owning villages • Issues: protection of Monarch butterfly breeding grounds