| How are forestry issues changing in Mexico?
Historically, Mexico has more of its forest on community lands
(both ejidos and comunidades indigenas) than any other country
in the world-some 80% of Mexican forests. According to World Bank
figures, some 15 of these communities have developed sophisticated
forest management and forest industry operations that can compete
in world markets.
Another 50-75 could compete with more capital, training and
technical assistance. However this leaves thousands more who need
an enormous amount of support to get to the level of the first
two categories. In the last two decades, Mexican forest policy
has wavered on its support for community forestry.
The 1986 law included some important reforms that favored community
forestry. The 1992 law almost completely ignored communities in
an effort to promote corporate plantations. The newly-passed 1997
law is much more balanced. It introduces environmental safeguards,
plantations cannot be substituted for natural forests, but also
provides for an array of fiscal and financial incentives for plantations.
The new law also calls for new resources for roads and management
plans for community forestry. While it could have done a lot more
for community forestry, it is a more coherent and integrated law
than has ever existed before. It is noteworthy that it had a broad
coalition of support from political parties, SEMARNAP, community
forestry organizations, and forestry NGOs, although it was opposed
by environmental groups and some indigenous rights groups.
Can you briefly describe the Pilot Forest projects in Quintana
Roo?
The Organization of Forest Production Ejidos of the Mayan Zone,
Quintana Roo (Organizacion de Ejidos Productores Forestales de
la Zona Maya, Quintana Roo-OEPFZM) is composed of 23 ejidos (agrarian
reform units) with over 1 million acres of tropical forest and
agricultural land in central Quintana Roo state.
It is part of a network of community forest organizations, collectively
known as the Pilot Plan (Plan Piloto), who together manage over
2.5 million acres of tropical forest and agricultural land in
central and southern Quintana Roo. The OEPFZM communities are
composed of Yucatec Mayans who settled these forests in the 19th
century as escaped and rebellious slaves from sisal plantations
in the state of Yucatan.
These communities have been managing their own forests for timber
and non-timber forest products since 1986, and have declared 366,660
acres as permanent forest areas, never to be converted to any
other land use.
The permanent forest areas are a major historical accomplishment
which sharply braked deforestation in Quintana Roo in the mid-1980s.
Another 248,400 acres is largely forested agricultural reserves,
which more intensive agricultural practices could liberate for
permanent forest use as well.
Who are the residents of these forested areas?
The 23 communities include some 25,000 people in approximately
5000 families. The area is extraordinarily poor, with 51 percent
of the economically active population in the Mayan Zone earning
less than the Mexican minimum wage (about $2.50 a day), double
the poverty rate in the rest of Mexico.
Twenty-six percent are illiterate with an average amount of
schooling of 3.8 years. Despite the burden of poverty, the communities
have been highly successful at generating some income while maintaining
forest cover.
The municipality of Felipe Carillo Puerto, where most of the
communities are, has 75 percent forest cover, one of the highest
percentages in Mexico, and possibly the highest of any municipality
in southern Mexico. Further, there is evidence that the percentage
of forest cover has dipped only slightly in the last 20 years,
a highly unusual situation in southern Mexico.
This suggests that the Mayans of central Quintana Roo and the
other community forest organizations in Quintana Roo have been
highly successful landscape managers. The forests they manage
provide income for them, sequester millions of tons of carbon
and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere annually, and provide
crucial habitat for migratory birds and many other permanently
resident animal species.
However, the sustainable management of these forests are currently
being challenged by a host of new pressures.
What are the Mayans doing to protect their forests?
Since it was organized in 1986, the OEPFZM has had to follow
the established timber markets, and focus its production on mahogany
(swetenia macrophylla) and to a lesser degree cedar (cederela
odorata). These are very high value 'precious' timbers, and their
management has served as an important new source of income for
the communities.
They have attempted to harvest these species in a sustainable
fashion, using the best available ecological information on the
reproduction of these species. However, both their own experience
with a declining number of harvestable trees as well as new ecological
research indicate that they must reduce the current levels of
mahogany logging.
To do this with severely impacting their income, they must develop
a new source of income from the forest. They are exploring a variety
of new timber, non-timber, and non-forest sources of income by
encouraging community members, particularly women, to look for
new sources of income that allow them to stay in their communities.
For example, they are looking for a batch between markets and
products for the many "lesser-known species" in the forest.
They are seeking new marketing strategies through certification
and methods of capturing the carbon sequestration value of the
forest through 'joint implementation' projects. They are also
seeking to vigorously expand their reforestation efforts, creating
new forest stands in currently degraded lands and enriching thinned-out
forests. The OEPFZM is also concerned with increasing income opportunities
for women.
How do you plan to collaborate with Mexican researchers in
the next few years?
I am currently working on a proposal to the Hewlett Foundation
with the Universidad de Quintana Roo, the University of Florida
and a Brazilian University on comparative community management
of tropical forests between Mexico and Brazil.
Mexico is actually far ahead of Brazil on community management
of forests for timber and the permanent forest areas in Quintana
Roo predate the extractive reserves concept in Brazil. But the
challenges of managing the Amazon are clearly on a much more vast
scale than the forests of southeastern Mexico, so the two experiences
have a lot to learn from each other.
What synergies do you find between your former job at the
Inter-American Foundation and your current position at Florida
International University?
I could have more immediate impact at the IAF, because I was
able to channel money towards organizations. However, the network
of contacts I was able to develop as a foundation representative
would take an academic decades to develop.
It is nice, however, to now be able to dig deeper into the realities
that I only knew superficially in my foundation work. I'm now
understanding better some of the reasons for some of the things
I was seeing and experiencing before.
Foundations do not seem to be accountable for their work.
First it's difficult to get public information about what is taking
place in the field and second, it's difficult to get a synthesis
of what was accomplished. What are your thoughts? Should this
work take place behind closed doors?
The Inter-American Foundation is a U.S. government agency so
all of its projects were on the public record. Now, that doesn't
mean it was easy to get an evaluation out of them. There's also
the privacy of grantees to consider.
Private foundations obviously have less immediate pressure for
public accountability, although there is certainly the argument
that they receive public support through tax exemptions, and thus
also have to be accountable to the public.
In many cases, they don't do evaluations either. There's an
implicit assumption that if you give money to good people and
good projects, they're probably doing good things with it. Evaluation
can take considerable time and effort.
Are foundations taking more responsibility for long-term
projects?
Your question is well-taken. Too many foundations take the irresponsible
attitude of "we'll support you for 2-3 years and then we're out
of here. We don't want you to be dependent on us". Well, most
of them don't generate their own income, a very difficult thing
to do, so of course they are dependent on foundation support.
If you as a foundation agrees with an organization and a strategy,
then you should be prepared to make a 5-10 year commitment. Otherwise
you're just a dilettante. Alternatively, you should make a contribution
to their endowment, and help them set up an endowment, before
you go.
Is there anything you would suggest for improving relations
among foundations and Mexican communities?
I don't have the impression that the relationship between foundations
and Mexican communities is bad, although the Inter-American Foundation
went through a rough patch lately where it has not been respectful
towards grantees, one of the reasons I left. But in general, and
as I mentioned above, foundations need to be prepared to enter
into longer-term relationships with successful communities. |
