Rainforest conservation in Mexico’s lowland Maya area: Integrating local meanings of conservation and land-use dynamics

In several tropical forested areas in which biodiversity conservation and indigenous cultures are interwoven, current conservation policies do not consider how the indigenous communities understand the concept of conservation that is promoted and implemented by conservation programs led by external actors, nor do they consider local traditional practices of resource management. To move towards more inclusive conservation policies that take these two aspects into account, research is required in indigenous settings that can inform policy makers. The present study, carried out in the lowland Maya area of Mexico, aims to investigate local meanings of rainforest conservation and dynamics of land use in two Maya common property holdings or ‘ejidos’ (Noh cah and X-Maben). The study used a Social-Ecological Systems approach comprising: (i) the Maya communities and their local meanings of conservation as a Social Subsystem, assessed through social surveys, and (ii) the rainforest of each studied ejido - which was regarded as an Ecological Subsystem and assessed through satellite images (from 2000 to 2012). In the former, interviewees were asked: “when you hear the phrase ‘conservation of the rainforest’ what do you think is being said?” They were also asked if there were local words in Maya or Spanish that were similar in meaning to the aforementioned phrase. The results relating to the meanings of conservation demonstrate that Maya people, who rely on the rainforest for multiple livelihoods, understand two types of meanings for looking after the rainforest; one promoted by governmental conservation programs, and the other called Kanan K’áax, a Maya phrase that represents their customary or community-based rainforest conservation. Differences between these two models of conservation encompass differences with respect to scale, gender and the Maya people’s own cultural practices. The results of the local dynamics of land use demonstrate that the landscapes of both study sites are dominated by mature rainforest (ranging from 73.9–82.7%), and are therefore in a good state of conservation, and that their agricultural frontiers have not expanded. Our empirical results are valuable in terms of informing the scientific community about the state of rainforest conservation in the Maya Zone, and providing policy makers (from the Maya area and elsewhere) with information to devise new, more inclusive conservation policies that take full account of the indigenous cultural practices of rainforest management.