Mexico forest tenure structure is known worldwide for its progressive approach of giving local communities full property rights to set a robust support to sustainable livelihoods in forested areas. Most forest areas i...Mexico forest tenure structure is known worldwide for its progressive approach of giving local communities full property rights to set a robust support to sustainable livelihoods in forested areas. Most forest areas in Mexico are owned by local communities either through the ejido, agrarian indigenous community or groups of small owners. In the last 30 years, many forest communities explored forest production at a commercial scale, creating their own communal forestry business and concurring to national markets with their timber and non-timber products. The socio-economical impacts of this approach were tremendous, steadily improving communities living standards. This success prompted rural organizations to ask the Mexican government to launch programs to expand the ＂community forestry＂ model. With international assistance from the World Bank and other agencies, the government of Mexico launched three different programs to foster forest commons： the Forest Conservation and Management Program, the Indigenous, Communities and Biodiversity Project and the Mexican part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. Performance of these programs has been assessed through the World Bank evaluation framework, but the question about their environmental impact or even about their environmental sustainability and therefore their validity as national policies has been scantily explored and practically not debated. To contribute to answering these questions, the author made an extensive analysis of their impact over forest cover during the 2003-2008 period using land cover maps and correlated them with institutional development variables, building a social organization and collective action index （SOCAI）, following Elinor Ostrom institutional analysis and development framework （lAD）.展开更多
文摘Mexico forest tenure structure is known worldwide for its progressive approach of giving local communities full property rights to set a robust support to sustainable livelihoods in forested areas. Most forest areas in Mexico are owned by local communities either through the ejido, agrarian indigenous community or groups of small owners. In the last 30 years, many forest communities explored forest production at a commercial scale, creating their own communal forestry business and concurring to national markets with their timber and non-timber products. The socio-economical impacts of this approach were tremendous, steadily improving communities living standards. This success prompted rural organizations to ask the Mexican government to launch programs to expand the ＂community forestry＂ model. With international assistance from the World Bank and other agencies, the government of Mexico launched three different programs to foster forest commons： the Forest Conservation and Management Program, the Indigenous, Communities and Biodiversity Project and the Mexican part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. Performance of these programs has been assessed through the World Bank evaluation framework, but the question about their environmental impact or even about their environmental sustainability and therefore their validity as national policies has been scantily explored and practically not debated. To contribute to answering these questions, the author made an extensive analysis of their impact over forest cover during the 2003-2008 period using land cover maps and correlated them with institutional development variables, building a social organization and collective action index （SOCAI）, following Elinor Ostrom institutional analysis and development framework （lAD）.
