TY - JOUR
T1 - Landscapes on the move
T2 - Land-use change history in a mexican agroforest frontier
AU - Berget, Carolina
AU - Verschoor, Gerard
AU - García-Frapolli, Eduardo
AU - Mondragón-Vázquez, Edith
AU - Bongers, Frans
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the FOREFRONT programme (5160957104 INREF-FOREFRONT) through the Interdisciplinary Research and Education Fund (INREF) of Wageningen University. E.M.-V. was supported by Forests 2020 project financed by the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA).
Funding Information:
This research was funded by the FOREFRONT programme (5160957104 INREF-FORE-FRONT) through the Interdisciplinary Research and Education Fund (INREF) of Wageningen Uni-versity. E.M.-V. was supported by Forests 2020 project financed by the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA). Acknowledgments: We are thankful to the ejidos of Loma Bonita and Boca de Chajul for allowing this research, and to all the interviewees that patiently took the time to share their detailed life histories. Special thanks to the Departamento de Estudios y Observaci?n de la Tierra, la Atm?sfera y el Oc?ano (TAO), El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Unidad San Crist?bal de las Casas, Chiapas, where Miguel Angel Castillo kindly provided access to the information used to elaborate the land-use classification maps, and to Emanuel Valencia for an earlier version of the land-use change maps. Thanks to Cecilia Moreno for translating the interview guide in Appendix A into English.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - An unprecedented magnitude of land-use/land-cover changes have led to a rapid conversion of tropical forested landscapes to different land-uses. This comparative study evaluates and reconstructs the recent history (1976–2019) of land-use change and the associated land-use types that have emerged over time in two neighboring rural villages in Southern Mexico. Qualitative ethnographic and oral histories research and quantitative land-use change analysis using remote sensing were used. Findings indicate that several interacting historical social-ecological drivers (e.g., colonization program, soil quality, land conflicts with indigenous people, land-tenure, availability of surrounding land where to expand, Guatemala’s civil war, several agricultural development and conservation programs, regional wildfire, Zapatista uprising, and highway construction) have influenced each village’s own unique land-use change history and landscape composition: the smaller village is characterized by a dominating pasture landscape with some scattered agricultural and forest areas, while the larger village has large conserved forest areas intermixed with pastures, agriculture, oil palm and rubber plantations. The differential histories of each village have also had livelihood diversification implications. It is suggested that landscape history research in tropical agroforest frontiers is necessary because it can inform land-use policies and forest conservation strategies that are compatible with local livelihoods and conservation goals.
AB - An unprecedented magnitude of land-use/land-cover changes have led to a rapid conversion of tropical forested landscapes to different land-uses. This comparative study evaluates and reconstructs the recent history (1976–2019) of land-use change and the associated land-use types that have emerged over time in two neighboring rural villages in Southern Mexico. Qualitative ethnographic and oral histories research and quantitative land-use change analysis using remote sensing were used. Findings indicate that several interacting historical social-ecological drivers (e.g., colonization program, soil quality, land conflicts with indigenous people, land-tenure, availability of surrounding land where to expand, Guatemala’s civil war, several agricultural development and conservation programs, regional wildfire, Zapatista uprising, and highway construction) have influenced each village’s own unique land-use change history and landscape composition: the smaller village is characterized by a dominating pasture landscape with some scattered agricultural and forest areas, while the larger village has large conserved forest areas intermixed with pastures, agriculture, oil palm and rubber plantations. The differential histories of each village have also had livelihood diversification implications. It is suggested that landscape history research in tropical agroforest frontiers is necessary because it can inform land-use policies and forest conservation strategies that are compatible with local livelihoods and conservation goals.
KW - Deforestation
KW - Environmental history
KW - Land-tenure
KW - Land-use change
KW - Livelihoods
KW - Oral history
KW - Social-ecological drivers
KW - Tropical landscapes
U2 - 10.3390/land10101066
DO - 10.3390/land10101066
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85117288263
SN - 2073-445X
VL - 10
JO - Land
JF - Land
IS - 10
M1 - 1066
ER -
