The Diffusion of Cattle Ranching and Deforestation: Prospects for a Hollow Frontier in Mexico's Yucatan

Abstract

The working papers published in the Series constitute work in progress circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comments. Views expressed represent exclusively the authors' own opinions and do not necessarily refl ect those of the editors. Ruhr Economic Papers #242

Deforestation and fragmentation of seasonal tropical forests in the southern Yucatán, Mexico (1990–2006)

“…Land management units in the SY, especially in the western and eastern sides of the region and along the south-eastern border of the CBR, substantially transformed forests to agricultural lands (crops and pasture), especially from 1990 to 2000. The main factors that contributed to a slowing of deforestation in the SY during the 1990-2000 and 2000-2006 periods of this study were the intensification of agricultural lands (Radel et al 2010, Busch & Vance 2011, the increasing diversification of household income generating activities Radel et al 2010), and the CBR rules against cutting old growth forests (Primack et al 1998;Roy Chowdhury & Turner 2006). Notwithstanding that the entire SY experienced low rates of deforestation during 1990-2000 and 2000-2006, even these low deforestation rates caused forest fragmentation, as measured through this study.…”

“…These factors likely contributed to a slowing in deforestation rates during the 1990-2000 and 2000-2006 periods (see Figure 3(a) and (b)), as well as the agricultural intensification of land use (Busch & Geoghegan 2010;Radel et al 2010;Busch & Vance 2011) and CBR rules regarding cutting forest lands (Primack et al 1998;Roy Chowdhury & Turner 2006).…”

“…This dominant trend has given a 'hollow frontier' economic status to the SY (see Busch & Vance 2011), in which increasingly intensive activities are conducted by fewer people, leading to an expansion of needs despite lower population. Together, reserve agents, local communities, government agencies and nongovernment organizations negotiate land management decisions across the region (Klepeis & Vance 2003;Vester et al 2007).…”

“…Forest loss may have occurred mainly for cattle pasture establishment, which has expanded in the region since the early 1990s (Busch & Geoghegan 2010;Busch & Vance 2011). According to a land cover classification of the SY in 2000, pasture zones were concentrated mostly on those land management units located in the western and eastern flanks of the region , coinciding with high deforestation zones during the 2000-2006 period ( Figure 5).…”

Framing the search for a theory of land use

“…Historically, many land-use explanations focused on land users (e.g., individuals, households, managers, corporations, states) as independent actors, guided by behaviors associated with market, command, and subsistence economies (Huber et al, 2018;Meyfroidt, 2013) or some variation thereof (e.g., mixed market-subsistence economies) (Schipmann & Qaim, 2010;Roy Chowdhury, 2010;Roy Chowdhury & Turner, 2006), captured in the element of actors' attributes. Subsequently, however, explanations have accounted for the opportunities and constraints on behaviors by the socio-or politico-economic structures in which actors exist, such as imperfect markets or 'hollow frontiers' (Barbier, 2012;Busch & Vance, 2011;Harrison, 2017), and by the variations among actors based on capital assets, gender, social capital, or norms and values (De Krom, 2017).…”