A
Land-Use History of the Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region (SYPR)
Peter
Klepeis
Contents:
Environmental and land-use histories contribute to research dealing with global
environmental change because they provide the framework or context for models that project
land-cover. Among these histories, none is more important than tropical deforestation
because of its contributions to potential climate change, loss of biodiversity, and
sustainable development. This project creates a land-use/cover change history of the
Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region (SYPR), from the 1960s to the present, where tropical
deforestation, among other environmental changes, are significant. It documents what
changes occurred and when, and provides an analysis of why these changes take place.
Specifically, this research: (i) creates a generalized map inventory of land-uses/covers
for selected time intervals; (ii) links specific kinds of land-users (managers) and their
use strategies to the various changes observed; (iii) identifies the reasons that the use
strategies were changed; and (iv) links these decisions, where appropriate, to major
structural changes in the region, and beyond. By establishing the influence of both
internal (i.e., spatially immediate variables such as household population size,
proximate environmental conditions or local institutional structures) and external factors
(i.e., spatially distant variables such as government policy, tropical storms or
macro-economic conditions) in decision-making about land-use, understanding of the local
landscape is improved and tensions among competing theories of land-use change are
clarified. This project also provides the details required for in-depth evaluation of
various land-use/cover models and projections, which are part of a larger research effort
to which this work is attached. Methods include archival research, analysis of remotely
sensed imagery, observation, and both semi-formal as well as in-depth interviews with
local land managers.
The human-environment relationship is a subject long claimed by geography and is
defined as the core of the discipline by many of its practitioners (e.g., Barrows
1923; Kates 1987). In this century alone, geography has witnessed expressions of the
relationship through the sub-fields of environmental determinism, cultural landscape,
human ecology, cultural ecology, and political ecology (Turner 1997; Zimmerer 1996).
Historical assessments of human-environment relationships are central to these geographic
perspectives (Butzer 1990; Goudie 1994; Leighly 1967; Thomas 1956; Trimble 1974),
although, ties by them to the field of history weakened over the past several decades. The
sub-field of historical geography largely abandons human-environment themes (Conzen 1990;
Meinig 1979), thereby, allowing environmental historians to fill the void (Cronon 1983;
Crosby 1986; McNeill 1992; Pyne 1991; Richards 1990).
Central to the approach of environmental history is to gain understanding of the
human-environment relationship through the detail, nuance, and synthesis of the narrative
(Williams 1994a). Among those best trained in the use of narrative, environmental
historians tend to follow research agendas defined internally, within their community
(Cronon 1983; Richards 1990; Pyne 1991), thus, they do not necessarily contribute to
questions posed by the human-environment community at large. The historical geography
tradition, by contrast, focuses on the landscape (e.g., Conzen 1990) or, more recently, on
"critical" assessments of environment and development (e.g., Leach and Mearns
1996).
Missing in historical assessments of human-environment relationships are studies
that cooperate with the aims and output of global change research and other
interdisciplinary efforts—the kind of study in which geography once contributed
significantly. A return to such objectives is underway (Meyer 1995; Goudie 1994; Turner
& Butzer 1992), especially as applied to land-use/cover change (Turner et al.
1995). The historical narrative provides the base understanding of the dynamics of
land-use/cover change by place and time (e.g., Richards 1990; Williams 1990),
thereby, providing the framework for model development and evidence for model testing
(Lambin 1994). In addition, it is virtually the only way to uncover the dynamics of
stochasticity in this change (e.g., Hecht and Cockburn 1989). Inasmuch as the
global change community "must" model and project land-use/cover (Turner et al.
1995), land-use/cover history should be escalated in research importance. Among these
histories, none is more important than tropical deforestation because of its implications
for potential climate change, loss of biodiversity, and sustainable development.
The Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region (SYPR) contains one the largest
remaining mature tropical forests in the Americas outside Amazonia. Essentially left alone
since the Classic Maya collapse in about A.D. 900-1000 (except for selective logging of
hardwoods since the 1950s), the seasonal tropical forests of the SYPR have been under
assault since the 1960s when the Mexican government sited the region for development.
Small-holders were settled on ejidos (communal lands established by the
government), private ranches appeared, and large-scale NGO/government-sponsored projects
were undertaken during the petro-dollar boom of the 1970s-1980s (Edwards 1986;
Gómez-Pompa et al. 1993; Richards 1990; Villar 1995). Despite this activity,
little documentation exists of the pace and scale of deforestation in the region and even
less attention is given to explanations of the changes in question.
This proposal combines the richness of the narrative with the output needs of
the land-use/cover change community. It does so by creating a land-use/cover change
history of the SYPR, beginning in the middle of this century. It documents what changes
occurred and when, and provides an analysis of why these changes take place within the
most important institutional-economic unit in the region, the ejido. The results,
important in their own right, also serve as the background for a larger study of global
change and sustainable development that seeks to model and project the changes in
question.
Land-use and environmental history offers important insights for understanding
the themes and objectives embedded in the broader research agendas of global environment
change and sustainable development (Turner and Butzer 1992; UNCSD 1996; United Nations
General Assembly 1992). Central to these agendas is improved understanding of the regional
dynamics of land use/cover, or environmental change more broadly (e.g., Turner et
al. 1995). In Mexico, development of a history tied to these agendas, such as
identifying the causes of this change, is in its initial stages (e.g., Sonnefeld
1992; Aguilar et al. 1995). Continuing to build this history not only fills a
research need with significant implications for environment and development discourses, it
adds important considerations for the development of theories and models of environmental
change, particularly by developing a narrative that links both external (i.e.,
spatially distant from the land-use system) and structural forces with internal (i.e.,
spatially immediate) and behavioral ones. While historical and humanistic perspectives may
object to such models, understanding that can be modeled is the backbone of global change
science and, to a lesser extent, the practice of sustainable development (UNCSD 1996;
United Nations General Assembly 1992).
Among the land-use and environmental histories needed, none serve the global
change and sustainable development communities more than those dealing with tropical
forests. They constitute a biome incurring rapid change at this time, usually in contexts
where local land managers are thought to have minimal control over the forces giving rise
to deforestation (Hecht and Cockburn 1989; Brookfield, Potter & Byron 1995; Kasperson,
Kasperson & Turner 1996; Smith et al. 1995). Tropical forests have important
ecological, economic, cultural, and ethical significance (Myers 1992; Peluso 1992; Place
1993). Despite covering only seven percent of the earth’s surface, they contain
between fifty and ninety percent of its biodiversity and perform important environmental
regulatory functions (e.g., as carbon sinks and maintainers of soil structure and
fertility) (Brown and Pearce1994). In addition, tropical forests are sources of wood, food
and drugs; maintain unique cultures whose knowledge contributes to our understanding of
the ecosystem; and have their own intrinsic value as forms of life (Brown and Pierce 1994;
Myers 1992; Place 1993; Plotkin 1993). Tropical deforestation affects local and global
biogeochemical cycles via soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and climate change (e.g.,
Houghton 1994; Williams 1990). Deforestation can lead to drought, floods, and
desertification. It disrupts hydrologic cycles on a global scale, leading to uncertain
precipitation patterns, releasing carbon dioxide, and contributing to global warming
(Mcguffie et al. 1995). The latest survey by the Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO 1993) estimates the global tropical deforestation rate, between 1981 and 1990, as
15.4 million hectares per year. This estimate amounts to a loss of almost one percent of
tropical forest annually. While the accuracy of such generalized global surveys is
questionable (e.g., Leach and Mearns 1996; Skole and Tucker 1993), tropical
deforestation rates are rapid and the environmental community is concerned over potential
adverse effects this has on social and ecological systems.
Southern Mexico has significant areas of tropical forest making it an important
center of biodiversity (Cairns et al. 1995). In the 1980s, it ranked fourth
globally in annual loss of tropical forest area (Sinclair 1985). Mexico’s average
annual loss of 1.3 percent ranks first among these top four countries (Cairns et al.
1995). Gómez-Pompa and colleagues (1993) put the rate of deforestation in Mexico at 1.1
million hectares per year in the late 1980s. Between 1970 and 1990, four fifths of
Mexico’s tropical and temperate forests were destroyed, largely because of government
settlement schemes and expanded ranching (Sonnefeld 1992). Such high rates of
deforestation help make Mexico the ninth largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world
(Liverman 1992). The deforestation in Mexico is indicative of a regional trend. Between
1981-1990, the Central American region lost 1.8 percent of tropical forest per year, the
second fastest rate of deforestation in the world after West Africa (FAO 1993).
The principal land-uses leading to significant changes in tropical forests
worldwide are logging, cropping, and livestock rearing. The impacts of logging and
agriculture are commonly interwoven, such as in southeastern Asia where clear cutting by
the timber industry opens the forest for small-holder use (Kummer 1992; Brookfield,
Potter, and Byron 1995). Logging of this kind is driven by international timber demands,
negotiations between industry and countries for logging concessions, and the robustness of
environmental enforcement. In the SYPR, logging has been selective to hardwoods (no clear
cutting), and the presence of logging roads per se did not lead, historically, to infusion
of small-holders into the region or to forest conversion.
Beyond timber pricing models or consideration of the politics involved,
deforestation themes focus largely on the role of voluntary and planned small-holder
settlement and how the dynamics of this process commonly lead to the expansion of medium
to large-holder ranching, especially in the Latin America (Browder 1995; Hecht and
Cockburn 1989; Schmink and Woods 1992). While the SYPR incurred some such large-holders,
most of the deforestation, until recently, is driven by small-holder cultivators and
NGO/government-directed development schemes. This situation may be changing, however, as
Article 27 (Mexican government initiative) permits ejidos (communally managed land
with usufruct rights given to its members) to privatize their holdings.
There are many variants of land-use/cover change taking place in tropical forest
zones around the world. Dominating these changes, however, are the economics and politics
of the timber industry and agricultural sector. The prevalence of ejido agriculture
in the SYPR directs attention to themes of agricultural change. While there is selective
logging, however, timber sector themes are less important from a land-use/cover change
perspective.
Agricultural Change Themes
A rich literature exists on agrarian land-use change among small-holders as
reflected in differential rationales of production and decision-making. Three kinds of
small-holder behaviors are recognized: subsistence, market, and hybrids of the two.
Simplistically, these behaviors are characterized as: subsistence-oriented in which
land-managers respond to land-labor pressures largely internal to the local community;
market-oriented in which land-managers respond to input and price signals external to the
community; and dual production-oriented in which land-managers respond to both subsistence
and market factors. These themes inform researchers
of the locally produced outcomes on land management—including changes in technology
that feedback on the decision-making of the household and the nature of agricultural
change (e.g., Hayami and Ruttan 1971)—as well as external factors to which the
small-holder is responding. Such themes are amenable to modeling because of strong
connections among forcing functions, behavior, and outcomes.
Increasingly, however, it is recognized that small-holders are affected by a
multitude of external factors, many, if not most, of which are not and cannot be accounted
for in the models noted and that have little or nothing to do with the land-use under
observation (e.g., see Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). Commonly, such as in the SYPR,
these forces appear as "shocks" to the existing system, playing havoc with local
land-use dynamics and, of course, the models used to assess them. Potentially, these
shocks involve a large range of factors. The shocks affecting the SYPR, however, appear to
involve national and international decisions that change the local structures of resource
allocation or use either directly (Article 27 or NGO/government-sponsored projects) or
indirectly (NAFTA). Such shocks cannot be predicted by the themes noted above.
In the SYPR, initial settlement was made by migrants in search of land on newly
established government ejidos, some with large-scale, NGO/government-sponsored
mechanized rice projects. In the first case, farmers engaged in subsistence cultivation
but were increasingly enticed by pricing policies to grow for the government-controlled
maize market. In the latter, small-holders had to borrow government-financed capital to
invest in parts of the rice projects, whose produce was intended for the market. These
large-scale projects were a product of the petro-dollar boom of the 1980s that ceased to
operate once a bust ensued. In 1992, government policy changed to allow ejido
members the right to own their lands (Article 27), a decision that apparently is leading
to the proliferation of investment in livestock and pasture. A large part of deforestation
and reforestation in the SYPR thus follows from dynamics that are difficult to
predetermine from a small-holder, decision-making perspective.
Tropical Deforestation Themes
Simply understanding small-holder decision-making is insufficient to understand
tropical deforestation, even where farmers are the central agents of change. Another set
of themes specific to the assessment of deforestation are required, as noted by the
land-use/cover change community. The first issue is the identification of a forest and
deforestation; this seemingly simple issue of definition is hotly contested, leading to
different base estimates (FAO 1990; Myers 1992) as well as calls for standardized
definitions and better monitoring of change via remote sensing (Corlett 1995, Grainger
1993, Skole et al. 1994, Williams 1994b). This issue affects this proposal inasmuch
as some of the data employed is from satellite imagery, raising related sub-issues: (i)
can the resolution distinguish the various land-covers of the critical land-uses (see
Grainger 1993; Moran, Brondizio and Mausel 1994; Skole et al. 1994); and (ii) can
reforestation be detected from secondary growth that is cut in a swidden system (Corlett
1995; Skole and Tucker 1993; Moran, Brondizio, and Mausel 1994).
The second issue constitutes the empirical demonstration of "macro"
human forces or causes of deforestation—modification and conversion—a subject
hotly contested (Kummer and Turner 1994) and perhaps affected by scalar dynamics. At
macro-spatial scales and in cross-site comparisons, PAT factors (where P = population, A =
affluence, and T = technology) tend to be the only ones demonstrating strong statistical
correlation with deforestation (Allan & Barnes 1985; Dietz & Rosa 1997; Rudel
1989; Wood et al. 1996). At micro-scales and in the historical narrative of change,
however, PAT factors typically have minimal explanatory power whereas factors of
institutional arrangement, policy, and markets are crucial (Kasperson, Kasperson and
Turner 1996). It is important in land-use/cover and environmental histories, therefore, to
be open to the consideration of all possible driving forces of change, across multiple
spatial scales.
Finally, although land-use/cover change is a result of multiple competing uses,
most theories and models of change are sector-based (Reibsame, Meyer, and Turner 1994).
What is needed is an integrated approach in which the various uses can be coupled (Kummer
and Turner 1994, Lambin 1994), and where it is recognized that coupling may be highly
place or regional specific. To this end, land-use/cover and environmental histories
provide a means to establish these couplings.
The southern Yucatán peninsular region (SYPR) crosses the southern portions of
the states of Quintana Roo and Campeche, Mexico, from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of
Mexico. Located in the tropics, it consists of karstic depressions and uplands covered by
seasonally inundated forest (bajos) and semi-evergreen forest, respectively (Wilson
1980). This region was once part of the central lowlands of the Classic Maya civilization.
It was densely occupied and largely denuded of its forests from at least the forth to
tenth centuries A.D., subsequently reverting to forest with the collapse of the Maya and
remaining as such throughout the colonial and modern periods (Turner 1990). Until the
early part of this century, it was sparsely occupied by Maya peoples practicing swidden
cultivation. The logging of tropical hardwoods began in earnest around 1950. In 1967, a
paved highway was completed through the SYPR, linking the communities of Chetumal (a free
port on the east coast) with Escárcega, a railroad stop on the west coast that links
Mexico with northern Yucatán.
The highway and free port were part of a larger Mexican government strategy to
develop the region, especially in Quintana Roo. Commensurate with this policy, various ejidos
were established and migrants from elsewhere in Mexico were encouraged to join them. In a
few cases, land was obtained by investors for livestock production. The highway and policy
led to an infusion of colonists. The SYPR was developed as an agricultural frontier (see Table
2).
The initial ejido farmers (Maya and non-Maya) colonizing the area
practiced swidden agriculture, largely for subsistence. In the early 1970s, however, the
government agency CONASUPO, principally by controlling the price of maize, offered
incentives for farmers to incorporate market production. Using both international and
national funding, the government of Mexico provided capital to the farmers so that they
could clear the forest, modernize agriculture, and produce market crops (Edwards 1986).
This resulted in farmers becoming oriented partly towards subsistence and partly towards
the market. In the early 1980s, various ( Non-Governmental Organizations) NGOs and the
government invested heavily in wet-rice projects in the large depressions or bajos
(wetlands) throughout the area. These projects were official programs for ejidos
and involved loans to farmers to participate in the programs. Due to inadequate water
control, most of these rice projects failed. Some new NGO projects are now advocating
agroforestry and the production of market crops like sesame seeds, chili peppers, and
bananas, some of which are not grown traditionally in the region. The degree to which
these new projects, as well as the effects of the 1992 land privatization law and NAFTA,
affect land-use is not well understood. Livestock production, however, seems to be on the
increase, apparently undertaken by ejido members.
Historically, the most pervasive land-use conversions are: (i) the conversion of
upland forest to agriculture and/or pasture; (ii) the intensification of upland milpa
(subsistence field that produces crops like maize, beans, and squash) to more intensive
agriculture and/or pasture; (iii) reforestation from abandoned uses or milpa
rotations; and (iv) the conversion of bajo (wetland) forests to quasi-mechanized
rice farming.
Table 2 Major Land-Use in the SYPR since 1960.
| Use |
Description |
| Logging |
Extensive timber extraction of hardwoods
around 1950. The region was not clear-cut but selectively logged. Due to the depletion of
tropical hardwoods logging has diminished significantly. |
| Ejido |
The ejido was one Mexican response to secure
and redistribute land to peasants, largely Indians, based on presumed ancient tenure
structures. Ejido members have secure usufruct rights to land. Recently, the government
permits the transfer of this land into private holdings. |
| NGO/government projects |
During the petro-dollar boom of the 1970s and
1980s, there were various NGO and government sponsored rice cultivation projects. These
efforts were largely mechanized and required an ejido member to become a financial
stakeholder by borrowing funds. These schemes largely collapsed due to inappropriate
technology. |
| Calakmul Biosphere Reserve |
Some ejidos are within this new reserve. They
are not allowed to expand cleared land and are encouraged to find ways to improve output
on land currently opened. |
| Ranching |
Raising cattle on medium-sized, private
holdings began in 1970s. More recently, ejido members are also investing in cattle and
converting their land to pasture. |
This project constructs a land-use/cover history of the SYPR from 1960 to the
present, focusing on forests, cultivation, and ranching, as well as the identification of
the major causes of land-use changes. Specifically, this research: (i) creates a
generalized map inventory of land-uses/covers for selected time intervals; (ii) links
specific kinds of land-users (managers) and their use strategies to the various changes
observed; (iii) identifies the reasons that the use strategies were changed; and (iv)
links these decisions, where appropriate, to major structural changes in the region, and
beyond. The research builds on the following assumptions taken from land-use change themes
and observations of the history of the region: (a) subsistence users operate within a
different decision-making logic from market users; (b) subsistence and market land-use
incentives may affect the same household, giving rise to diversified production
strategies; (c) land-use is shifting increasingly from a subsistence to a market
orientation; (d) these shifts are rational decisions in the face of changing conditions or
structures (e.g., institutions, policy, markets) in which the users operate; and
(e) many, if not most, of these structural changes originate at national and international
levels. The land-use/cover history, therefore, weds external (e.g., government
policy or macro-economic conditions) and internal (e.g., household population size
or proximate environmental condition) factors operating among SYPR small-holders. In
addition to improving understanding of the local landscape, this provides the details and
nuances required for in-depth evaluation of various land-use/cover models and projections,
which are part of a larger research effort to which this work is attached.
International research communities engaged in land-use/cover change studies
recognize the need to wed the details found in historical narratives of the problem to the
development and testing of theory and models that incorporate both social and biophysical
processes and outcomes (Turner et al. 1995). This proposal addresses focus one
of this agenda on land-use/cover change (LUCC), providing the essential background for a
larger, NASA-sponsored research effort (SYPR-Land-Cover and Land-Use Change or SYPR-LCLUC)
of the George Perkins Marsh Institute, Harvard Forest, and ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal. The
research design provided below refers only to the dissertation effort, not the larger
project. It should be recognized, however, that this research benefits considerably from
the data and findings generated by the larger project, and is conducted synergistically
with it.
Regional Land-Use History
The first aim of the project is to create a general, regional history of
land-use/cover change for the SYPR. (1) Generalized land-use/cover sketch maps of the
entire region are created for four time periods, constituting "snap shots" of
major periods of change: after the paved highway was built in the late 1960s; after the
government settlement projects of the 1970s; after the oil boom of the early 1980s; and
the present, after the 1992 land tenure reform law (Article 27) and in the midst of NAFTA.
This information is developed from assessments of aerial photography, satellite imagery,
maps, archival sources, and in cooperation with the SYPR-LCLUC project. (2) A history of
how the major "shocks" (identified in 1) affect the various land-use systems in
the SYPR are developed through archival and survey work. This step identifies the major
land management responses to changing socio-economic traditions. This effort is assisted
by the expertise of ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal (a Mexican research organization affiliated
with the larger project). The key for the narrative is that the theory testing of the
larger project involves a stratified random sample of all the major types of land managers
in the SYRP: small-holders, ranchers, and members of NGO/government projects. Part of the
survey, involving this principle investigator (PI), elicits information on the land
strategy responses of land managers to the major external events or shocks to the SYPR
land systems.
Ejido Comparative Study
The second aim of the project is to create a detailed land-use history for two
or three representative ejidos. These ejidos represent the two basic
environments of the region (uplands and wetlands) and the two major socio-economic
experiences of small-holders (subsistence- and market-based cultivators). To accomplish
this task, considerable time is spent in the two locales, gaining the trust of their
populace. Individual households and ejido-groups are sampled completely through
in-depth interviews—structured, quasi-structured, and open-ended— to elicit
quantified and qualitative information on the following: (i) household composition and
structure, time in residence, and off-farm income; (ii) land parcels used by households
and strategies of use (past and present—made spatially explicit); (iii) proportion of
land-use devoted to subsistence and market production; and (iv) rationales provided for
basic land-use strategies and their changes relevant to the shocks in question. Note that
the aim of iv is not to test theory of land-use change per se (an element of the larger
project) but to provide an understanding of the decisions to shift production systems in
light of the shocks noted.
The specific ejidos selected are based on those criteria that distinguish
the major kinds of land-uses and differing responses to the system shocks in the region.
The first criterion is the environmental distinction between seasonal wetland or bajo
locations, and well-drained upland locations. Bajo locations were historically
avoided until the advent of NGO/government-sponsored rice projects that subsequently
failed. The associated ejidos of these projects display a distinctive land-use
history. Upland locations were favored historically, beginning with subsistence
agriculture. Significant movement towards market cultivation has occurred, however, and
upland areas are being transformed by Article 27’s privatization of land. At least
two trajectories of land-use change seem to be following this external shock: (1)
increasing emphasis on small-holder livestock production and (2) intensification of
cultivation owing to new cropping restrictions within the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve.
Ideally, both trajectories should be captured. It is not certain at this time, however,
whether both are present in the same or different upland ejidos, thus, raising the
uncertainty for the need to examine closely two or three ejidos.
Methodology/Data
Regional Land-Use History
The study region (SYPR) is bounded by Nicolas Bravo in the east and Lago
Silvituc in west, capturing the low-lying bajo environments on either side of the
rolling uplands. The two locations are situated along route 186, about 180 km apart. The
north-south limits of the study are to be determined, but will likely focus on 20
kilometers on either side of the road, as this distance is most influenced by settlers
and, therefore, has undergone significant land-use change. Land-use/cover maps of the SYPR
will be created by using interview and archival data as well as by consulting both aerial
photographs and satellite imagery of the region. Sketch maps will be compared to
government produced land-use maps which are available for 1975, 1985, and the mid-1990s,
and to remotely sensed imagery. Regional structural forces and shocks within them are
identified primarily by archival research of government documents, newspaper accounts, and
scholarly work. Interviews with ejidatarios (residents of the ejido) and
social scientists at ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur) supplements
this work (for sampling technique see below). National and international structural forces
are identified and linked to regional processes by reconstructing government policy via
archival research and interviews. An ethnography of behavioral responses to the structural
forces links the external change to local dynamics.
Sampling
The pan-region survey remains under construction, pending the specifics of the
larger project and past work of ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal. The criteria for selection
include: bajo or upland environment; part of past rice projects; location within
and without the biosphere reserve; age of municipio or settlement; population-land
ratio; and the presence of different scales of change (e.g., livestock, orchard
gardening, or minimal change). A matrix of the different trajectories of change associated
with these criteria will be made after an initial field visit in July, 1997, and based on
this matrix and the work of ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal, the number of ejidos sampled is
to be determined. Ideally, as many as two ejidos per major class in the matrix will
be surveyed by the PI and the larger project, estimated at this time to amount to about
eight ejidos.
The survey respondents (land managers) will be chosen randomly from each
community after an inventory of households is created. Most households are clustered in a
central location, with farmer’s fields located outside of the central community,
which aids in the creation of the list. This inventory is necessary to create a random
sample due to questionable existing sampling frames (e.g., 1990 government census
is notoriously inaccurate). At least ten respondents from each community are to be
interviewed (totaling at least 80 respondents for the project overall). Interviews with
respondents are carried out in conjunction with graduate student, Colin Vance, who is a
part of the larger project on land-use change to which this research is attached.
Semi-formal Survey Instrument
Due to the difficulties in obtaining personal land-use histories, a semi-formal
survey instrument is to be employed. This technique asks more open-ended questions and
allows the respondent to tell their own story of land-use change. It is a useful way to
identify the decision-making rationale because it does not lead the respondent by overly
pointed questions and, thus, allows for "surprise" responses. Semi-formal
surveys also aid in obtaining sensitive information in a round-about way. For example, the
SYPR regional literature identifies the importance of local price supports for maize and
the ability to get more land within the ejido. Semi-formal surveys ask such
questions as, "Did government price supports work?" or "Did the ejido
system serve you well?" These questions are less specific than a formal questionnaire
and allow small-holders to provide answers in ways that may be more comfortable for them
and more revealing of their own views. This kind of information is quantifiable. For
example, nine out ten respondents reported that they increased maize production because of
secure price supports. The semi-formal survey is to be conducted in tandem with the larger
project and corresponds with the households and settlements in which the formal survey
work of that project is conducted. The semi-formal surveys will be pre-tested in order to
create more pertinent and focused questions and to refine the language in which the
questions are asked.
Community Meetings
Ejidos or municipio meetings also will be conducted, in cooperation
with ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal. The aim of these meetings is to elicit the collective memory
and story of land-use/cover changes in the ejido, particularly in regard to the
general course of use decisions between external shocks (e.g., petro-dollars,
Article 27), as well as the rationales for adjustments once the shocks occurred. This
level of discussion tends to elicit ejido issues at large, such as disputes with
other ejidos or with the state and national authorities, as well as providing a
cross-check against individual respondent error. Community meetings take place after the
semi-formal interviews are administered so as not to bias land-manager responses.
Comparative Study
As noted, two to three ejidos are to be selected for detailed study. In
these locales, semi-formal surveys will be made of all households and several community
meetings are to be held over the course of the study. Key informants will be chosen, as
well, based on their length of residence in the region and their willingness to
participate in in-depth discussions. Informants that have lived in the area for 30-40
years are ideal in order to recreate the land-use history going back to the early 1960s.
In addition, the land units of each household are to be geocoded through the use of GPS
(global positioning system) registration, providing spatially explicit information that is
registered with the imagery analysis of the larger study. With assistance from
ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal and Harvard Forest ecologists, the age, structure, species
composition, soil fertility and other physical variables will be part of the record for
each household’s land units.
Synthesis and Reconstruction
With the information noted, land-use/cover maps for the detailed ejido studies
will be constructed, accompanied by a land-use history explaining the changes. The mapping
exercise provides information that can be linked pixel-by-pixel with the remote sensing
study of the larger project, and thus the use-cover linkages found can be extrapolated
across the study area. The information provides a base for interpreting the imagery in the
SYPR project, serving as a validation exercise. The accompanying land-use history of the
detailed ejido study provides a base understanding of the results of the sample
survey. The detailed study allows for an assessment of the validity of the general
narrative for understanding ejido land-use changes throughout the SYPR.
This proposal complements, and the research findings feed into a NASA-LCLUC on
modeling and projecting land-use/cover change in the SYPR. This larger project joins
researchers from the George Perkins Marsh Institute (Clark University), Harvard Forest,
and ECOSUR-Unidad Chetumal with the aim of assessing the strength and weaknesses and
merging of spatially explicit, probability models of land-use/cover change based (i) on
imagery analysis alone and "corrected" by biophysical and social information and
(ii) on behavioral and structural models of land users. The NASA-SYPR project provides the
research in this dissertation project with access to information that would not otherwise
be available to the researcher: spatially explicit classification of land-cover for the
entire region; ECOSUR data on the ejido economy and projects; access to ECOSUR
specialists on Maya agriculture and local livestock production; and use of ECOSUR to gain
entry into selected ejidos. In return, the land-use/cover history of this project
provides a backdrop through which the NASA-SYPR effort can assess the robustness of its
models.
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