Tim Trench

FROM “ORPHANS OF THE STATE” TO THE COMUNIDAD CONSERVACIONISTA INSTITUCIONAL: THE CASE OF THE LACANDÓN COMMUNITY, CHIAPAS 1

This article briefly traces the history of the Lacandón Community in the Lacandón rainforest of Chiapas to reflect upon the impact of growing state presence in a hitherto periphery region of southern Mexico. This agrarian community, created in 1972, and made up of Tzeltal, Chol, and Lacandón Maya groups, has become over the decades an important player in the current configuration of interests that purportedly aim to conserve the remaining forest in this strategic region. The article shows how these three ethnic groups have become gradually absorbed into the logic and practices of the state, developing a novel clientelistic relationship in the context of efforts at biodiversity conservation. But rather than becoming traditionally dependent political clients, the Lacandón Community has unusual leverage in its relationship with the state as the legal owner of 500,000 hectares of sub-tropical forest, containing seven protected areas. But the article concludes that despite the Lacandón Communitys relative influence in the region (compared to other peasant indigenous communities with distinct political affiliations) and its sporadic struggles to attain more autonomy of action, this occurs within limits defined by the state; in other words, the state continues to define the plot, if not the exact script.

Inclusion and Exclusion in Participation Strategies in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico

Since the 1970s, community participation has become central in biodiversity conservation initiatives, mainly as a strategy for integrating the needs and interests of the populations living in and around protected areas (PAs), and to enhance local social development. Nevertheless, institutionalised participation is usually conceived as a means to attain the goals of conservation initiatives. Although important efforts have been made to construct participatory processes, these are designed and implemented in ways that produce exclusion. In this study, we analyse the exclusion processes produced in the consultation workshops developed to evaluate and update the Conservation and Management Programme (CMP) of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve (MABR), and in the Reserves Advisory Council (Consejo Asesor) meetings. Our analysis is based on the observation of two workshops, the revision of workshop reports, interviews with institutional officials, and the participation of one of us in the Advisory Council of the MABR as a councillor. We show that participatory processes for incorporating local populations views and perspectives into decision-making processes still face important challenges. We highlight the importance of acknowledging, and attending to, the processes of exclusion generated by the mechanisms themselves, despite being implemented to include local communities.

Inter-sectoral and multilevel coordination alone do not reduce deforestation and advance environmental justice: Why bold contestation works when collaboration fails

Policy makers, academics, and conservationists often posit that poor coordination between different land use sectors, and between levels of governance, as an underlying challenge for reducing deforestation and forest degradation. This paper analyzes this argument using data from interviews with over 500 respondents from government, nongovernmental organizations, private companies, local and indigenous communities, activists, and individuals involved in 35 diverse land use initiatives in three countries: Peru, Indonesia, and Mexico. We find that while there is strong evidence of widespread coordination failures between sectors and levels, more fundamental political issues preclude effective coordination. We argue that political coalitions act to oppose environmental objectives and to impede their opponents from participating in land use governance. Moreover, we find that where coordination between actors does occur, it does not necessarily produce environmentally sustainable and socially just land use outcomes. Where we do find successful initiatives to reduce deforestation and benefit local people, effective coordination between well-informed actors is often present, but it does not occur spontaneously, and is instead driven by political organizing over time by activists, local people, nongovernmental organizations, and international donors. We suggest that the global environmental community must recognize explicitly these political dimensions of land use governance in order to successfully collaborate with local people to reduce deforestation.