Maya environmental successes and failures in the Yucatan Peninsula

Faust, Betty Bernice

doi:10.1016/s1462-9011(01)00026-0

Cited by 57 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Mayan people traditionally considered forests to be common property, with individual usufruct rights recognized to fallow areas and planted trees (Farriss 1984;Gomez-Pompa 1987). In addition, there is evidence that Mayans utilized cultural symbols and rituals in the collective management of milpa agriculture and forest areas (Faust 2001). We hypothesize that the presence of strong internal governance, shared cultural traits, and/or a homogenous and relatively closed set of resource users, as found in traditional Maya communities, will facilitate the maintenance of common property systems.…”

Section: Internal Driversmentioning

confidence: 96%

Tenure, tourism and timber in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Land tenure changes in forest Ejidos after agrarian reforms

Barsimantov¹,

Racelis

Barnes³

et al. 2009

Int J Commons

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We present and apply an analytical framework for understanding land tenure change in the wake of radical land policy modifications in Mexico's communal tenure system. We posit that the changes in land tenure vary as a result of a complex interplay of drivers external and internal to the land tenure unit. Using interview and socio-economic data, we apply this framework to six ejidos in Quintana Roo, Mexico in order to understand the extent to which these ejidos have shifted towards private individual property as promoted in the 1992 amendment of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. In our case study ejidos, we conclude that external factors, including community forestry, tourism, and urbanization, have synergized with factors internal to the ejido (including governance, existing resource base, ethnicity, livelihood strategies, migration, and attitudes about property), leading to different trajectories in land tenure arrangements.

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Section: Internal Driversmentioning

confidence: 96%

Tenure, tourism and timber in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Land tenure changes in forest Ejidos after agrarian reforms

Barsimantov¹,

Racelis

Barnes³

et al. 2009

Int J Commons

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“…As with other parts of Mexico, Latin America, and the "New World" (e.g., Moran, 1990;Wright, 1990;McDonnell and Pickett, 1993;Dyer and McGoodwin, 1994;Johnston, 1994;Pye-Smith et al, 1994;Lean, 1995;Painter and Durham, 1995;Simonian, 1995;Vandermeer and Perfecto, 1995;Cooke et al, 1996;Adam, 1998;Place, 1998;Nicholson and O'Connor, 2000;Decker et al, 2001;Leff, 2001; see also Crumley, 1994), the history of the Yucatán clearly illustrates that Homo sapiens is part of -not apart from -the environment, and that the ways in which people behave and interact have major consequences on the environment, including the availability and distribution of basic resources (e.g., Kintz, 1990;Terán and Rasmussen, 1994;Faust, 1998Faust, , 2001Faust and Bilsborrow, 2000;Folen et al, 2000;García, 2000;Faust et al, 2004). Throughout its various cultural and historic epochs, the Peninsula provides clear examples that social issues and environmental problems are interdependent and often best understood when viewed within a larger geographic context.…”

Section: The Yucatán Peninsula As Part Of the Post-modern Neo-liberamentioning

confidence: 99%

Biosphere reserves and the “Yucatán” syndrome: another look at the role of NGOs

Frazier

2006

Landscape and Urban Planning

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“…Throughout history, the Yucatec Mayan culture has faced recurrent disturbances of different nature and magnitude while their populations fluctuated (Faust 2001;Gunn et al 2002), including its population collapse in the Classic and Postclassic periods (Folan et al 2000). Recent survival and recovery of Yucatec Mayan communities after such disturbances are associated with their ability for managing vegetation mosaics, maintaining the multi-crop systems called milpas, and exploiting different species (200-300 plant species) from various environmental units (Barrera-Bassols and Toledo 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responding to disturbances: lessons from a Mayan socio-ecological system

et al. 2015

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Abstract:The Mayans of the Yucatán Peninsula, together with their environment, conform social-ecological systems with adaptation and resilience to natural, political and economic disturbances. In this study, we use the framework of socialecological systems for describing a mechanism that allows a Mayan community and its natural environment to respond to disturbances over time. We describe (1) the activities that members of the community develop as part of their strategy for managing natural resource management, and (2) the history of the socialecological system focusing on meaningful events: changes in their institutional body, landscape and/or practices for exploiting natural resources, and interactions between these changes. Through both semi-structured and in-depth interviews, historical narratives and participant observation, we found that managers use the environmental heterogeneity to diversify the exploitation of species, manage the secondary vegetation and protect mature vegetation. Formal and informal institutions of access, regulation and administration of natural resources regulate 832 Gabriela González-Cruz et al.productive activities and management practices. These institutions operate differentially at the levels of environmental units (prohibition of the exploitation of the natural resources of mature tropical forests) and species (protection of the jaguar and cougar). Diversification of productive activities, management of environmental heterogeneity and the presence of flexible institutions enable responses in the social-ecological systems that have the potential to contribute to its long-term maintenance. Comprehensive studies like this might help to understand adaptive capacity and social-ecological resilience.

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Maya environmental successes and failures in the Yucatan Peninsula

Cited by 57 publications

References 21 publications

Tenure, tourism and timber in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Land tenure changes in forest Ejidos after agrarian reforms

Tenure, tourism and timber in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Land tenure changes in forest Ejidos after agrarian reforms

Biosphere reserves and the “Yucatán” syndrome: another look at the role of NGOs

Responding to disturbances: lessons from a Mayan socio-ecological system

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