From Passive to Active Community Conservation: A Study of Forest Governance in a Region of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

This thesis investigates how seven communities in a subregion of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca are conserving high forest cover in the absence of national protected areas. To conduct this study I relied on archival research and the review of community documents, focus group interviews and land use transects to explore historical and current land use. I found that communities have conserved 88.34% of the subregion as forest cover, or 58,596 hectares out of a total territory of 66,264 hectares. Analysis suggests that the communities have undergone a historical transition from more passive conservation to more active, conscious conservation particularly in the last decade. This thesis further contends that communities deserve additional financial compensation for this active conservation of globally important forests for biodiversity conservation and that exercises in systematic conservation planning ignore the reality that existing biodiversity conservation in the subregion is associated with community ownership.

Community-Governed Multifunctional Landscapes and Forest Conservation in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico

“…All rules and regulations regarding the use, access, and conservation of communal lands are established and enforced by community members. Even in the cases with no formal statutes, following the work of Van Vleet (2013) in several communities of Sierra Norte, and my own formal and informal interviews with community members, there is reason to believe that these communities respect and follow these rules.…”