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01 September 2003 Parks in Mexico projecting benefits well beyond their boundariesBetter forest management brings economic and biodiversity benefits to Yucatan NohBec, Mexico—Not far from Cancun, down the white sandy beaches that line the blue waters along Mexico’s Yucatan
Peninsula, lies one of North America’s most significant nature preserves, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve—a World Heritage
Site—that is home to more than 100 mammal species, 346 bird species, and more than 900 species of plants. Protected and well
managed, the Reserve has so far been successful in conserving the Peninsula’s unique and varied biodiversity. But the popularity of Cancun and the Yucatan coast has added extra pressure on the unprotected forests outside the Reserve’s
boundaries. There are fears that unregulated development of the area will turn Sian Ka’an—which in Mayan means “Where the
Sky is Born”—into a non-viable biological island. Yet while conservationists hope to build a biodiversity corridor from Sian Ka’an to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in the
middle of the Yucatan Peninsula, which would ensure that large animals such as the jaguar would have enough room to roam,
there is growing recognition that the local indigenous people have to materially benefit from conservation efforts. Parks and poverty cannot coexist There are presently more than 44,000 protected areas around the world, or about 10 percent of the world’s land surface.
As a reservoir of the world’s biodiversity, these areas provide water, protect soils, filter the air and hold the promise
of improving foods and medicines. Yet there has been criticism of these parks within the development community by those who
believe that the preservation of wilderness areas comes at the expense of the people who live nearby. The World Parks Congress 2003, to be held in Durban, South Africa from 8-17 September, is considered by many to represent
a turning point in the debate, and a convergence of thinking of conservationists and development officials. According to Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of UNDP, one of the major sponsors of the Congress, there is now an acknowledgement
that parks can’t exist in a vacuum. “Parks and poverty cannot coexist. While parks deliver enormous benefits for the global
community, in protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, and in mitigating the effects of climate change, they also have
to provide direct benefits for the people who live nearby,” Mr. Malloch Brown adds. Parks and the people For the members of the Mayan community of NohBec, just 20 kilometres west of the Sian Ka’an, the forest has traditionally
provided a living from the hardwoods, palm leaves and chicle—the traditional base of chewing gum. Their management of the
land is based on a system of communal land tenure, the result of the ejido system that was established in Mexico in the 1930s.
There are 216 families that belong to the NohBec ejido cooperative and they own 24,000 hectares of land. The problem is that the forest, while conserved, has not produced big dividends for the community—until now. According
to Saul Blanco, a forester, the community received meagre payment from private logging concessions for the tons of mahogany
that were felled from its forest. “We had very little awareness of what wood was worth at that time,” says Mr. Blanco. According to Francisco Montalvo, secretary of NohBec’s commuity council, a mix of poor administration and restrictions
due to the ejido’s unique legal status was pushing the operation toward a financial crisis just a few years ago. “The council members are people with a lot of experience in the forest, who want to preserve the forest, but who don’t
know much about administration,” he said. A crisis was averted with assistance from an international collaboration administered by UNDP known as COMPACT, or the
Community Management of Protected Area Conservation. COMPACT is a joint effort between the United Nations Foundation and the
Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme that has helped local communities protect the biodiversity in and around
World Heritage Sites in six countries on three continents. COMPACT’s support for NohBec began in 2001 and has resulted in a number of fundamental changes to how the community does
business. According to Julio Moure, COMPACT coordinator for Sian Ka’an, a series of training sessions have been held to help
the ejido’s various departments coordinate their work better and improve management of their forest resources. The changes have brought results. Last year, enough profit was earned to give each ejido member a dividend payment of 22,100
Pesos (US $2,200). And Mr. Blanco says that as profits rise, there are plans to invest more in equipment and infrastructure
improvements in order to lower waste, and further increase profits. Building a biodiversity corridor Mr. Moure explains that there are many ejidos in the region with between 25,000 and 40,000 hectares of forest each, and
that could be managed better. “According to LANDSAT images, approximately 70 percent of Sian Ka’an’s buffer zone is covered
with forest that is in good, or very good shape,” says Mr. Moure. “I believe that within another five years, we could have
about 500,000 hectares of forest under community sustainable management.” —Freelance journalist David Dudenhoefer has been covering environmental issues in Latin America for more than a decade
and has previously contributed to CHOICES. Promoting protected areas Parks Serve Nature and People Mexico at a Glance |
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