“Biodiversity Is Diversity in Use”: Community-Based Conservation in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve

Abstract

During the early and mid-1990s, the buffer zone of Mexico’s Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche state was home to a pervasive program of integrated conservation-development. Because these projects saw high levels of local participation, Calakmul attracted the interest of Mexican and international environmentalists who saw the region as an example of the possibilities for community-based conservation. This paper outlines the content of those programs as well as challenges to their success. In particular, the paper describes how a government-farmer relationship built on patronage and land distribution is at odds with conservation programs that take land out of the agricultural base and anticipate a sustainable economy that has yet to develop. The desire for land is an enduring, politicized issue in Calakmul. This issue is so strong that government authorities have not been able to enforce changes in the Mexican constitution (Article 27) that ended the distribution of farm lands. These constitutional changes took place in 1991, and since that time, authorities have created two new farm communities in Calakmul in order to protect the Reserve from land invasions.