Community forestry in Mexico: Twenty lessons learned and four future pathways Book Chapter

Bray, DB. (2005). Community forestry in Mexico: Twenty lessons learned and four future pathways . 335-349.

cited authors

  • Bray, DB

authors

abstract

  • As the chapters in this book have made clear, the Mexican community forest sector has made historic strides since the 1970s. Until then, almost all Mexican forest communities that produced timber were considered to be rentistas-communities simply "rented" their forests to outside loggers, whether contractors or concessionaires. The term rentista referred to (1) communities that did not participate in any way in the extraction process, commonly not even as loggers, since the outside companies would bring their own crews; and (2) communities that received only an administratively set derecho de monte, or stumpage fee, which was below the market value of the timber sold on the stump. Beginning in the 1970s, large numbers of CFEs began to emerge, and the era of the concessions came to a close in the 1980s. Almost all forest communities were allowed to sell their timber and receive the full market price, not a government-set stumpage fee. In this sense, the traditional "stumpage fee" rentista communities no longer existed. Nonetheless, the term rentista is still used today to refer to communities that sell their timber on the stump for (in theory) full market value, even if they do not participate in the extraction process or form a formal CFE to do so. However, since classical exploitative rentismo is a historical stage that has been superseded in many areas of Mexico, it is here proposed that these modern communities be referred to as simply "stumpage communities." Historical forms of rentismo may still exist in pockets in states such as Chihuahua and Guerrero, although even here we should perhaps use the term neo-rentismo, since they normally do not suffer the worst forms of exploitation of the past. The continued presence of neo-rentismo shows that despite historic achievements, there are still many and profound problems in the community forest enterprise sector. Many smaller CFEs continue to struggle with problems of isolation, corruption, lack of capital and technical assistance, and illegal exploitation by outsiders. Many communities are still engaged in intense and violent struggles to gain effective control of their common property forest resources. In 1996, 13 ejidatarios of the San Alonso ejido in Chihuahua, with the support of a Chihuahuan forest and human rights NGO, filed suit against the International Paper Company for cutting unmarked pine outside of the logging area and for logging a listed species. The suit was settled in favor of the ejidatarios, which led to the suspension of the logging permit, the suspension for one year of the license of the forestry engineer, and a fine of 205, 000 pesos against the ejido authorities, although later protests and negotiations on the part of other members of the ejido apparently diluted the impact somewhat. Other ejidos have led protests against clandestine logging on their lands, but with little response from government authorities. PROFEPA, the environmental attorney general, has investigated 411 claims of forest violations from 1996 to 2000 in Chihuahua, but there are no comparative numbers from other states to judge whether this is high or not. Exploitative logging by outsiders continues to be widespread in states like Chihuahua and Guerrero, with frequent corruption of ejido authorities (Guerrero et al. 2000). The community of San Juan Tierra Negra in southern Oaxaca is another documented example of the kind of abusive exploitation of forest resources which continues in poorly organized communities (Merino-Pérez 1997). At the same time, however, after an initial year of considerable confusion around the forest policies of the Vicente Fox administration, a clearer and highly promising policy picture has begun to emerge, as Merino-Pérez discusses in Chapter 3 of this book. The first director of the National Forest Commission (Comisión Nacional Forestal; CONAFOR) was a former governor of Jalisco and said to be an intimate of President Fox. As such, he was the highest-ranking political figure to occupy the top forestry policy position since Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in the late 1970s. This director, Alberto Cárdenas, subsequently became Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales; SEMARNAT) in September 2004. The significance of this is showing up in the budgets for forestry programs. The Forest Development Program (Programa de Desarrollo Forestal; PRODEFOR), which subsidizes forest management activities in community forests, and the Program for the Development of Forest Plantations (Programa para Desarollo de Plantaciones Forestales; PRODEPLAN), which supports both industrial and community plantations, have been significantly expanded in resources and broadened in scope (see Merino-Pérez and Segura-Warnholtz, this volume). According to official government figures, the annual resources for PRODEFOR are now larger than those of both programs in the total of the previous four years, with a budget of 276 million pesos (about US$27.6 million) for 2002, with an additional 30% coming from the states. But in addition to the substantially expanded resources, the possible investment projects have been greatly expanded. Whereas PRODEFOR was mostly limited to financing management plans, projects can now be presented for a wide range of forest production and diversification activities. Now, training, silvicultural treatments, certification, technical studies for harvesting of NTFPs, ecosystem services projects, and ecotourism projects can all qualify for funds, with amounts in the range of US$50 to US$100, 000 available for ecotourism and logging road projects. At the same time, the Program for Forest Conservation and Management (Programa para la Conservación y Manejo Forestal; PROCYMAF), a World Bank/government of Mexico program to promote and strengthen community forest management, is being expanded to include 10 states over the next several years. PROCYMAF, in association with PRODEFOR, is the first Mexican government program since the 1970s that has made a concerted effort to promote community forest management and the formation of CFEs in Mexico, with Oaxaca being the primary focus of its work through 2002. In the 1998-2000 period, PROCYMAF in Oaxaca was able to incorporate 32 new communities into community logging activities, a notable achievement for such a short period (PROCYMAF 2000). The existence of the PRODEFOR and PROCYMAF programs since 1997, and their current rather dramatic expansion, is the most decided public policy support for CFEs in Mexico since the late 1970s and early 1980s. This opportunity needs to be seized by forest advisors, communities, and NGOs to use the new government and multilateral resources that ensure that community forest management (CFM) remains as a permanent part of forest policies in Mexico. Deeply entrenched suspicions of government action need to be overcome to recognize this historic opportunity. But as new and more favorable public policies are consolidated, the question of how many more new CFEs can be promoted in Mexico becomes urgent. Very little is known about the periods of formation of CFEs in Mexico, that is, how many CFEs were formed in what years or historical periods. Survey information from Oaxaca confirms the general impression that most existing CFEs were probably legally formed by the end of the 1980s. For 15 sawmill communities in Oaxaca, the average founding date was 1984, and the average date for roundwood communities is 1988. Only the stumpage communities on average legally organized themselves more recently, with an average date of 1994 (Antinori 2000). But other CFEs continued to be established in the 1990s, for example, the CFE San José Zaragoza in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, established in 1994. How many more new CFEs have been established in the 1990s? PROCYMAF staff suggests that nearly all communities with logging permits in Oaxaca now have their own logging team headed by a trained jefe de monte, which would mean that the period of neo-rentismo has ended in Oaxaca, an important historical achievement which has been insufficiently recognized (Juan Manuel Barrera, personal communication, 2002). In the numerous other forestry states, how many more new CFEs can be created? Was the promotion of forest communities themselves "high- graded" during the community forestry "boom" years of the 1970s and 1980s? Did government agencies and NGOs identify and create most of the CFEs that can be created? The experience of PROCYMAF in its first three years of operation in Oaxaca is illustrative. As mentioned above, it was able to start CFEs in 32 new communities for a collective forest estate of 75, 593 hectares, with an average of 2, 362 hectares each. This is relatively small forest estate. Although there are examples of successful CFEs mounted on even smaller forest estates, it still suggests the potential for new CFE creation is concentrated in the small communities, and that few, if any, large forest communities do not have CFEs. The new ones that are incorporating now are the ones with very marginal forests, and the marginal costs of incorporating new communities will be high. PROCYMAF has identified three major problems associated with trying to extend the CFE model into additional Mexican forest communities. (1) Communities lack leadership or have severe internal conflicts that prevent them from responding. (2) In the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, in particular, there has been widespread parcelization of the forest resulting in a "covert privatization" of the forest (although this is not necessarily a barrier to mounting a CFE). © 2005 by The University of Texas Press. All rights reserved.

publication date

  • December 1, 2005

International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 13

start page

  • 335

end page

  • 349