Chile
Cultivation and Forest Preservation in the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region
Eric G. Keys
Driven by a desire to both preserve tropical environments and the realization that
local peoples depend on those environments for livelihood, the search for conservation
with development is on. To accommodate both interests, intensive agriculture is frequently
proposed. It is thought that intensive, commercial agriculture enables farmers to increase
their economic welfare at the same time as limiting the total amount of land cultivated.
Limiting the total amount of cultivated land is thought to save ecosystems high in
biodiversity, carbon-storage potential or archeological and historical remains. The
proposed research will evaluate this proposition in the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region
(SYPR). Within the SYPR transport middlemen have stimulated commercial chile production
which is now undertaken by over fifty percent of the farmers in the region. Therefore,
this research is driven by the overarching question: What are the likely impacts of the
widespread adoption of intensive commodity production of chile among small holders in the
SYPR on the forests there? Answering the overarching question demands understanding chile
crop requirements and management practices, the economic costs and rewards to the farmers,
and linkages to the market. Three subquestions will be studied: [1] Do the physical
requirements of chile cultivation limit the kind and amount of land dedicated to the
activity? [2] Do the economic rewards of this production suggest that small holders can
sustain it? [3] What role does the complex, vertical structure of the chile market,
including market-based transport middlemen, have in perpetuating chile cultivation in the
SYPR? Informed by diverse methods (ethnography, survey, ecological research, and remote
sensing) these questions speak to various cross-disciplinary conceptual themes, and
illuminate sustainable development and the human dimensions of global environmental change
discussions. |
