Global protected area policies spark conflicts with Mexico Indigenous groups.
Posted on Mar 07, 2024
The creation of the UNESCO-listed Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Mexico’s Campeche region has led to a long-standing conflict with Indigenous residents who argue the government restricted their livelihoods, despite promises of support and land titles.
According to researchers, these conflicts are due to a fault in nations’ application of international conservation policy by overemphasizing the expansion of protected areas while paying less attention to socioeconomic factors and equitable management included in these policies. Authors underline the importance of adapting international conservation policy, such as the “30 by 30” pledge, which plans to conserve 30% of Earth’s land and sea by 2030, to specific local contexts and needs.
Conflicts between communities and government plans to protect vast swaths of land in line with international conservation policies, such as the “30 by 30” goal of preserving 30% of the world’s land and ocean area by 2030, are already simmering, according to a new study.
In Mexico’s Campeche state, a farming community living in the UNESCO-listed Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (CBR) is seeking to redraw its boundaries to allow for daily activities such as growing food and hunting. But the federal government, which has jurisdiction over biosphere reserves, has rejected it, according to José Adalberto Zúñiga Morales, director of the CBR.
The argument behind this, according to the study’s authors, was that Mexico needed to comply with one of the Aichi targets — now Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) — which means increasing, not decreasing, the percentage of land under conservation.
“This affects us because the reserve is prohibiting us from living, from sustaining ourselves and livelihoods,” Felipe Ramírez, an Indigenous farmer from the community located in the reserve, told Mongabay. “The federal government does not want to let us freely [cultivate] in the reserve, and we do not have documents to guarantee that the land belongs to us.”
According to researchers of the new study published in Environmental Science and Policy, overemphasis on easily quantifiable targets, such as percentage of surface area, is hindering attention paid to other elements of the conservation policy, such as socioeconomic factors, equitable management, human rights and the inclusion of Indigenous and local communities. Too much attention is paid to the “how much to conserve” and not enough on the “how to conserve,” they say.
The reserve in question is Mexico’s largest forest reserve, and proudly so. The site was given world heritage status for its “exceptional conservation value both on natural and cultural grounds.” According to Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), it holds more than 80% of the plant species of the entire Yucatán Peninsula, as well as 350 species of birds and almost 100 species of mammals. It is home to several threatened species, such as the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), the Central American tapir (Tapirus bairdii), the jaguar (Panthera onca) and puma (Puma concolor), among others. The best-conserved population of king vultures (Sarcoramphus papa) is also in Calakmul.
A Mayan structure’s remains in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Image by Elelicht via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Relocation gone wrong
The Mexican government created the 723,185-hectare (1,787,029-acre) Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in 1989. Since then, there has been a long-standing conflict with residents over land tenure rights and restrictions on the use of natural resources.
In the 1990s, following government efforts to repopulate the region after a wave of migrations decades earlier, families from across Mexico and neighboring Guatemala migrated to Calakmul and formed several ejidos (communally owned land used for agriculture and forestry purposes) in the region. The federal government, through the National Agrarian Registry and Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development, began the process of formalizing land titles. However, they quickly discovered that four ejidos belonging to the communities of Las Delicias, 22 de Abril, Aguas Amargas and Aguas Turbias were located inside the boundaries of the CBR and therefore could not be titled.
Almost a decade later, in 1999, the four communities were relocated to Santo Domingo town, where they were formed into one new ejido called El Sacrificio. The 450 inhabitants were made up of people from at least three Indigenous ethnic groups, including Chol, Tzeltal and Tzotzil, whose livelihoods are based on subsistence agriculture and hunting.
Each household was allocated 20 hectares (49 acres) of land under the small private property regime, but without a title. Although the original intention was to relocate them to an area outside the CBR, due to a lack of communication among government agencies, the federal government found that 47% of El Sacrificio was accidentally still inside the reserve. Morales told Mongabay that because of this mismanagement, the titling process has been halted for more than 15 years (with the exception of six titles for plots outside the CBR), which has created ongoing problems for those without titles.
“When the government convinced us to accept the relocation [to El Sacrificio], they promised to give us food supplies, housing and land titles,” said Ramírez. “Up until now this has never been fulfilled, they deceived us and now we are here suffering.”
One of the main sources of income for these communities is the production of jalapeño peppers and corn. According to Romel Rubén González Díaz, an Indigenous human rights defender and coordinator of the regional Indigenous and popular council of Xpujil, residents of El Sacrificio have been fined and put in jail for growing plants or cutting wood. He told Mongabay, “Most of them can’t use the land because they are accused of deforestation.”
“Although they prohibit us, we keep working, even in small pieces, cultivating the plots,” said Ramírez. “We have to eat and support our families.”
The El Sacrificio community in the state of Campeche, Mexico. Photo by Malena Oliva.
A surface area bias
Mexico is among nearly 200 nations that have committed to support the goal to protect 30% of Earth’s land and waters by 2030 to comply with Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which contains targets and provisions to address the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
According to a study, the application of international conservation strategies, such as Target 3 of the biodiversity framework, without considering the local populations who inhabit the land, is one reason why conservation conflicts arise, as seen in El Sacrificio. Although the framework mentions the need for “equitable” and “effective” management in the increase of protected surface area, governments and policymakers still have not figured out an effective strategy to measure a country’s compliance with its other targets.
Malena Oliva, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and lead author of the study, told Mongabay the design of locally relevant indicators remains a challenge around the world because it’s much harder to quantify the achievement of targets related to human rights, social impacts and local participation. Indicators related to Indigenous peoples include trends in the practice of traditional occupations, respect for traditional knowledge and land use changes.
Instead, countries focus on surface indicators, such as the percentage of marine and terrestrial areas protected, as a main strategy to measure progress toward their international commitments.
Mexico’s diminishing resources could pose an additional challenge for the country in measuring socioeconomic indicators in the field. The country’s environmental agencies under the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have been subjected to consistent cuts in funding since 2016, meaning its environmental authorities have to manage the country’s 225 protected areas with fewer resources than before.
Residents of the El Sacrificio ejido base their livelihoods on subsistence agriculture and hunting. Photo by Malena Oliva.
“If Calakmul has to report on certain indicators to the federal government, they have to allocate efforts, people and resources to that, and so there are some institutional constraints in the management and implementation of these targets,” Oliva said.
Both El Sacrificio residents and CBR authorities say they agree that disincorporation, which involves redrawing the boundaries of the reserve so the community would no longer be inside it, is a viable option to address the conflict. However, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas of Mexico rejected this in 2015, arguing the “proposal is not feasible” because the modification does not consider the loss of protected surface area.
Morales told Mongabay the government has “established agrarian [discussion] tables to resolve the conflict” and it is “analyzing the possibility of handing over their lands to the community.” But Ramírez said no one has visited El Sacrificio since last year, when SEMARNAT agents promised them land titles and that they would return one month later, which never happened.
UNESCO also told Mongabay it “has not yet received any requests from the State Party to modify the boundaries of the biosphere reserve or the World Heritage property.”
The organization informed Mongabay that it has requested a report from the Mexican government on the site’s state of conservation to be examined at the next session of the World Heritage Committee in New Delhi in July.
The federal government and CBR authorities have not proposed measures to include the community in the conservation of the biosphere reserve. Such measures may include trainings, discussions with farmers and collaborative projects to manage the area and ensure community conservation. Policymakers and researchers recommend the inclusion of communities and local knowledge in the management of ecosystems as an effective way to conserve ecosystems. At times, these management systems can outperform state-protected areas that exclude people, especially Indigenous communities.
But in this case, community land titles in the protected area are still not permitted, as they could be considered, or lead to, a loss of protected surface.
“While it is necessary for the protection of these natural areas and cultural sites to be as comprehensive and effective as possible,” UNESCO stated, “it is crucial that local communities are duly included in this process.”
Mexico is among nearly 200 nations that have committed to support the goal to protect 30% of Earth’s land and waters by 2030 to comply with Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Image by mzagerp via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
What’s next for ’30 by 30′?
Despite these issues in calculating protected space, Oliva from UNAM added that huge efforts are being made to open up a new pathway for Indigenous and local communities to be taken into consideration in achieving conservation targets, beyond protected areas and surface-based conservation measures.
“That’s coming through acknowledging Indigenous peoples and local community efforts,” she said.
In December, the IUCN launched Act30, an initiative co-designed with the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, which seeks to work at the government level to map out diverse and effective pathways to meet the 30 by 30 goal while upholding Indigenous peoples’ territories, rights and knowledge.
And last August, the WWF, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and The Nature Conservancy developed a guide to “inclusive, equitable and effective implementation” of the 30 by 30 goal. It contained practice advice, technical tools and recommendations for those in charge of achieving the goal.
Countries have until the next U.N. biodiversity conference in October to submit their new national strategies, known as NBSAPs, to meet the biodiversity framework’s goals.
By: Aimee Gabay
Banner image: King vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Image courtesy of FSC GD.
