Understanding deforestation in the Maya tropics: Land tenure evolution, institutional delegitimation and the revindication of local norms (Guatemala, Belize, Mexico)

In the subtropical region of Guatemala, Belize, and southeastern Mexico, social conflicts plague efforts to prevent forest conversion to areas of concentrated human use. The social context of tropical deforestation involves marginalization of smallfarmers, campesino migration, ethnic mobilization and nascent democratization as processes that affect the legitimacy of institutions and state coercive ability to enforce conservation measures. Competitive social subgroups contest state policies and each other as they strive to gain access rights to natural resources. Central issues in the resolution of natural resource degradation involve land tenure changes, institutional delegitimation, and the role that local normative changes play in a potential pro-conservation future. This cross-national comparative study assesses these variables from the vantage point of five competitive subgroups—the state, commercial interests, smallfarmers, Maya ethnic groups, and non-governmental organizations. Ultimately, successful conservation measures rely on changes in the normative behavior of peasant and Maya communities that enforce land redistribution from below as a component of conservation. Peasant generated norms appear as components of co-management and communal property regimes in all three countries.