El nacimiento de los “Sin fuego”: caso Parque Nacional Lagunas de Montebello, Chiapas, México

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of this research is to understand the changes in fire use practices of fire use in two indigenous communities located in Lagunas de Montebello National Park, Chiapas, Mexico, where current public policies implementation on fire use suppression have had severe social and ecological repercussions. The wildfire in 1998 has been considered as a breaking point to the changes and tensions that are happening in the region.Method: We applied 66 semi-structured and in-depth interviews to two rural communities, located inside (Tziscao) and outside (Antela). The topics were about local fire uses and the governmental fire policies incidence over rural communities to understand who they are, where are they and how was the birth of the “Sin fuego”.Results and discussion: The narratives included different interpretation about practices of fire uses, mainly in agriculture activities, where fire uses were more severely criminalised. The fire suppression policy implementation, after 1998’s big wildfire in the Park, marked a before and after in the territory. Generally, these public policies are opposed to the traditional logic in the use of fire, and they have been generating a disappearance of fire use practices in these rural territories, where communities have historically used the fire for several purposes. Some practices that included the use of fire, such as slash and burn agriculture have entirely disappeared in Tziscao, a community where the fire was a central element of culture, livelihood, and a way of building the territory. At present, the inhabitants are afraid to use fire in their practices, due to repercussions for causing fires and the risk of declining tourism. In Antela rural community, which is located outside to the Park and with no economic dependence on tourism, maintains traditional fire practices on farming activities.Conclusion: If the tendency to suppress fire is maintained, not only will a process of cultural transformation intensify, but also of environmental degradation about to the construction of the territory. More significantly, a dramatic modification of the landscape could trigger more catastrophic wildfires. Thus, the long-term challenge is not to make inviable or exclude fire, is to include it in the maintenance and shaping of the landscape based on the experience and knowledge that peasant communities have, the investigation of available fire ecology, and sensibilise and integrate the government authorities for the formulation of fire management plans that integrate local practices.

Application of the Distance to Natural (D2N) Index and Statistical Analysis of Different Anthropic Uses of the Río Grande De Comitán Watershed, Chiapas, México

“…The Lagunas de Montebello National Park is an important lake system and it is inside in this lower part of the watershed. It covers because it was declared a protected natural area in 1959, in 2003 it was integrated into the RAMSAR Convention, and in 2009 it was declared how the international network of biosphere reserves (Ponce Calderón et al, 2020). This area is localized in southern Mexico of the state of Chiapas (Figure 1).…”

La milpa: sistema de resiliencia campesina. Estudio de dos organizaciones campesinas en Chiapas

“…3 Como han llegado a representar las políticas públicas como la Ley de Quemas (Norma Oficial Mexicana NOM-015-SEMARNAP/SAGAR-1997) y los reglamentos de las áreas naturales protegidas (Aguilar, Caso y Fernández, 2019;Gutiérrez, García, Parra y Rosset, 2017). Cabe destacar que quemar y cazar son parte de las actividades de la milpa en cuanto que sistema agroforestal (Ford y Nigh, 2015;Naranjo, Bello, Estrada, Mariaca y Mendoza, 2013;Ponce, Vera, Álvarez, Rodríguez, Rodríguez y Villanueva, 2020).…”