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

Abstract

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.

Private and communal lands? The ramifications of ambiguous resource tenure and regional integration in Northern Bolivia

“…NAFTA in turn facilitated market penetration into the Mexican countryside, already underway due to urban population growth. However, contrary to expectations of the ETLR and many observers, privatization of ejido lands has not (as yet) occurred (Barnes 2009;Barsamintov et al 2010).…”

Endurance and Adaptation of Community Forest Management in Quintana Roo, Mexico

“…Research has demonstrated how ejidos have selectively adopted some aspects of privatization, without undergoing the formal process of certifying and titling ejido lands [36,91,[93][94][95]. This research notes how ejidos internally and informally divided common forest areas, including permanent forest reserves established during the PPF, and converted them to individual landholdings.…”

“…The reforms and resulting new Agrarian Law had two key impacts for forested ejidos in Quintana Roo, potentially constraining CFM's original promise of both environmentally and socially sustainable development. First, it promoted informal parcelization of forestlands-a process by which the ejido internally divides and distributes ejido lands without undergoing legal titling of individual properties [36,91,92]. While this process may have been occurring in ejidos of Quintana Roo before the 1992 reform, the new agrarian law, in some cases legitimized, and stimulated this informal parcelization.…”

“…As described above, Article 27 brought threats of privatization and deforestation within ejidos to the region. However, in some cases, ejidos engaged in CFM saw privatization, albeit informal, as a way to resolve internal conflicts and management problems, including illegal timber harvests [36,91,92]. While many speculated that the 1992 reforms would lead to widespread privatization, less than 10% of ejidos nationwide have opted for formal privatization [109].…”