Fewer wildfires, great biodiversity: what is the secret to the success of Mexico’s forests? | Global development
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eexter Melchor Matías works in the local Zapotec town Ixtlan de Juarezabout 1,600 feet (490 meters) above the broad Oaxaca Valley in Mexico, where community forestry has become a way of life. Like him, about 10 million people across the country live and make their living from forests, with half of that population identifying as indigenous.
As average temperatures rise worldwide and wildfires rage across the Americas, in Mexico, where more than a quarter of the country suffers from drought, the number of wildfires remains stable since 2012.
More than half of Mexico’s forests are in the hands of the community and the local populationa situation unlike anywhere else in the world, which experts say helps explain why the country has done better in controlling large fires.
“There are more wildfires south of here because they have very small private properties,” said Melchor Mathias, a local forest manager. “They just don’t have the capacity to monitor their forests like we can.”
Worldwide, approx 36% of the rest the unspoilt forest landscapes are on indigenous land. Studies show which are not only controlled by the community forests absorb more C02 than those under state or private control but deforestation rates are lower. They also suffer less in severe water shortages, which greatly reduces the risk of forest fires.
Ixtlan’s long, narrow territory of 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) encompasses snow-capped mountain peaks and lush lowland jungles with cloud forests in between. Instead of clear-cutting, vertical strips of pine and oak between six and eight hectares (15 and 20 acres) are cut in strips down the mountain slopes, allowing the forest to regenerate naturally.
Logging operations are strictly regulated by Ixtlán’s Community Forestry, which wrested the forests from a private concession in 1982. Ixtlán’s success has been happening all over Mexico ever since after 1970, communities benefited from state forestry reforms and subsidies to exercise greater local control.
From more than 21,000 communities with forest ownership in Mexico, about 2,200 engage in sustainable logging, mostly in the southern part of the country.
For forestry enterprises like the one in Ixtlan, maximizing profits has never been the primary goal. “Our interest is in creating jobs,” says conservationist Guadalupe Pacheco-Aquino. in the second poorest state in Mexico, relatively well-paid rural jobs such as those created by forestry in Ixtlan are rare. “Forestry has played an important role in helping people lift themselves out of poverty.”
Investment in public works such as roads and schools and the generation of local income through profit sharing complete the mandate of municipal forest enterprises. “These firms are engaged with the market, but not driven by the market,” said David Bray, a professor of land and environmental studies at Florida International University. “They are successful because of favorable government policies, high and stable timber product prices, and their sophisticated levels of community management.”
A predominantly male community assembly runs Ixtlan’s logging and sawmill and furniture factory. To be a vote comunero as the members of the assembly are known, carries significant obligations and status. It is a hereditary position that is usually passed down from father to son. “That’s starting to change,” says Pacheco-Aquino, “as more fathers leave the position to their daughters.”
Decision making is based on local customs who place the interests of the group above the individual, value the knowledge of elders, and prioritize consensus. Political parties are excluded. Instead, technically trained senior members represent all local families and participate in every important decision.
“From a business point of view, although we now have an advisory committee to speed up decision-making, this system takes much longer. That’s the downside,” says Pacheco-Aquino. “But our structure has the advantage that everyone who has an interest in the outcome has a voice.”
Melchor Matías says: “With so many bosses, it was hard to adjust at first. But gradually you get used to how it works, and the benefits of it to the community outweigh the time it takes.”
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Noemi Cruz Hernandez is the manager of the furniture factory in the community. The forestry engineer oversees 40 employees who make tables, benches and chairs from high-quality pine grown in Ixtlan’s tropical mountain forests. The operation is certified by Forestry Council.
“We mainly sell school furniture to the state government, but we are working on becoming more independent. We just opened our second retail store in the city of Oaxaca,” she says. Using forest revenue to diversify its economy, Ixtlán now has a community-run gas station, grocery store, water bottling facility, credit union, and an ecotourism inngenerating the sustainable economic development that Mexican communities need.
From 21,000 communities with forest ownership in Mexico, about 1,600 sustainably log 6.9 million hectares (17 million acres), mostly in the southern part of the country. At Ixtlan, workers are paid minimum wage plus benefits for 48 hours a week. “Our biggest problem is turnover,” says Cruz Hernandez. “We train people and then they leave for better opportunities elsewhere.”
People leaving the area are a problem in Ixtlan, even after the creation of a local university, the Universidad de la Sierra Juárez – in 2005, which emphasizes forestry and conservation programs. However, migration rates are lower than in other rural communities.
Many of Joaquin Aquino’s classmates have left. A driver, he had a chance to go to Canada, but stayed to help care for his sick father. Aquino, who has a four-year-old son, now works for the Ixtlan Ecotourism Project. “I was able to stay because of community forestry. It benefits all of us as well as the cities around us,” he says. “There is much more income. And protecting forests means we have something to leave to our children.”
Despite a steady flow of remittances from elsewhere in Mexico and the US, Ixtlan’s economic woes persist. However, extreme poverty has fallen by more than half since 2010.
Samuel Bautista Aquino is 16 years old with three more years of high school ahead of him. The money his mother and older sister earn by running a small food business is not enough to support Samuel and his two younger siblings.
Samuel had to drop out of school and now works as a tourist guide. As he crouches down to show a visitor a small woodland flower, he says, “I want to go to university and learn more about plants and trees, but especially fungi.” 113 different types of wild edible mushrooms identified in Ixtlan.
Checks in the forests are a regular occurrence. “We have never had problems with illegal logging,” says Melchor Mathias. Mexico’s municipal forests often suffer from even lower rates of deforestation than the country’s protected areas.
According to Bray, given the urgency of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, this type of forest management stands out as example from positive results of local and local control over burns. “Public forests sequester more carbon than strictly protected areas, mostly by storing it in wooden furniture and timber for construction,” says Bray. “When indigenous and local communities control their forests, people and the land win.”
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