A Tale of Two Communities: Explaining Deforestation in Mexico

Abstract

Summary:Explaining land use change in Mexico requires understanding the behavior of the local institutions involved. We develop two theories to explain deforestation in communities with and without forestry projects, where the former involves a process of side payments to non-members of the community and the latter of partial cooperation among community members. Data collected in 2002 combined with satellite imagery are used to test these theories. For the forestry villages, we establish a positive relationship between the distribution of profits as dividends instead of public goods and forest loss. For communities not engaged in forestry projects, deforestation is largely related to the ability of the community to induce the formation of a coalition of members that cooperates in not encroaching. This happens more easily in smaller communities with experienced leaders. A disturbing result of the analysis is that deforestation is higher when a community engages in forestry projects, even after properly accounting for self-selection into this activity. This suggests that forestry projects as they now exist in Mexico are not sustainable and contribute to the deforestation problem.

A spatial analysis of common property deforestation

“…Out of the entire sample, I use only the 324 communities that do not have forestry projects. Communities that undertake active wood exploitation are very likely subject to a different deforestation dynamic than those that do not (this dichotomy is detailed in [2]). …”

“…The rejected observations include communities with over 8000 ha of forest loss over the period and those with over 2500 ha of forest increase. 2 Overall increase in pasture land per community between 1994 and 2000 is 234 ha, with a wide variance, and a substantial portion of the communities (41%) do not deforest at all, or have increased in their forest cover over the period. The total forest coverage in the sample in 1994 is 919,959 ha, 73,848 (8%) of which are lost in the period between 1994 and 2000.…”

“…These facts suggest that there is a continuum of community control over activities in the commons which ranges from a centralized planning approach to a nearly complete lack of regulation. One model that explains this kind of partial cooperation continuum in common property deforestation can be found in Alix-Garcia et al [2]. McCarthy et al [26] develop an alternative model of partial cooperation in ejido pastures.…”

The Place of Community Forest Management in the REDD+ Landscape

“…In Ecuador, indigenous reserves that do not overlap with land under conservation status display similar rates of deforestation to private lands. Furthermore, exogenous forces can influence the forest outcome, not just the activities of the communities themselves [12,[53][54][55][56]. The success of CFM in protecting forest resources is more likely where population pressure is low, and less likely in the face of conflicts, market pressures, and rising population [57].…”

“…Recent research demonstrates that some non-trivial forest income flows could be at stake for the rural poor [103]. In this matter, it is relevant to make a distinction between communities that use the forest mainly for subsistence and family consumption and those who would use it commercially (e.g., timber, non-timber forest products) [56]. For subsistence use, it may not be possible to compensate a reduction in forest access and use; resources will have to come from elsewhere.…”