Resource management and fertility in Mexico’s Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve: Campos, cash, and contraception in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen

Abstract

This case study examines the link between marine resource management, and the universal contraceptive use among married couples in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen, located in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Several reasons appear to contribute to small desired and actual family sizes. Some of these include a medical clinic staff effective in promoting family planning, cooperative and private resource ownership, changing cultural attitudes, geographical limitations to population and economic growth, and a desire to conserve the environment for aesthetic and economic motives. Lastly, families desired to preserve a sustained balance between benefiting from lobster harvests today and safeguarding this marine resource for their children in the future.

Co-governance of Small-Scale Shellfisheries in Latin America: Institutional Adaptability to External Drivers of Change

“…In the short-term, dozens of fi shers coped with this economic crisis by waiving their memberships, transferring their exclusive access rights (i.e., fi shing lots) to other members to pay their debts, and emigrating to nearby urban areas (Leslie 2000 ). Thus, cooperative membership declined from 100 to 71 at the end of the 1980s, while the local population contracted from 500 to 400 residents (Carr 2007 ).…”

“…In the long term, the devastation caused by Hurricane Gilbert made remaining small-scale fi shers aware of their vulnerability to climatic variability, which encouraged them to take preventive actions to strengthen fi shery governability and the fi nancial administration of their cooperative (Carr 2007 ;UNDP 2012 ). Thus, Vigía Chico's fi shers adapted collectively their harvesting strategies by fi ne-tuning their fi shing effort according to spiny lobster abundance, and applying rigorous penalties (e.g., expulsion from the cooperative and confi scation of fi shing lots and fi shing equipment) to those members who infringed upon federal and internal management regulations.…”

“…Eight years later, catch and CPUE showed signs of recovery (SosaCordero et al 2008 ). Other adaptive responses were applied, including (Carr 2007 ;Sosa-Cordero et al 2008 ;Ley and Quintanar 2010 ;UNDP 2012 ): (1) stabilization of fi shers population by limiting the allocation of new memberships only to children of cooperative members and restraining, by preference, their own fertility rate, which has been one of the lowest in Mexico since the mid-1990s. The logic behind this trend is that keeping a low number of fi shers and children ensures the prosperity of the entire community, particularly in times of resource scarcity; (2) enhancement and proper management of the cooperative's fi nancial affairs by hiring a private accounting fi rm; (3) diversifi cation of livelihoods by creating tourism cooperatives since 1994; (4) diversifi cation of products by catching and trading of live lobsters since 1995; (5) enhancement of the spiny lobster value chain since 2004 by establishing a partnership between Vigía Chico and fi ve cooperatives from Sian Ka'an and Chinchorro biosphere reserves (Mexico).…”

Integrating Ecology and Poverty Reduction

“…Conversely, in Mexico's Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, the need to protect lobster harvest sustainability was cited as a primary reason for nearly 100% contraceptive prevalence rates, suggesting an understanding of the impacts of human fertility on marine resources and local livelihoods (Carr 2007 ) .…”

Why has Iran’s family planning policy been so successful? Political, demographic, socio-economic, and cultural-geographical underpinnings of a dramatic fertility transition

“…Other studies show that a result of the baby boom following the revolution was half a million more women than men at the age of marriage (Jafari-Mojdehi 2003). Perhaps in addition to serving as a direct cause of fertility decline in Iran, as observed in other contexts with rapid fertility decline such as rural Mesoamerica in recent years (Davis and López-Carr 2010;Carr 2007;Sutherland et al 2004), rapid economic growth may have facilitated several other cultural socio-economic and demographic factors all related to decreasing fertility in post-revolutionary Iran. We now discuss this larger cultural and religious context in relation to falling fertility in Iran.…”