Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Home gardens are important for biodiversity conservation, food security and ecosystem services. The purpose of this article is to analyze the biocultural diversity of home gardens in San Andrés Nicolás Bravo. Ninety-eight home gardens were studied through interviews with home garden owners on their use and management. The family, genus and species of cultivated plants and fruits were identified; their abundance and index of cultural importance were calculated; and an analysis undertaken of their main components together with a cluster analysis to determine the difference between home gardens. In addition to the knowledge associated with fruit plants, there is an enormous sentimental value attributed to plants and their use in rituals. The most abundant species were those with the greatest cultural value, as a result of which their multifunctionality influences the richness of home gardens and shows the bioculturality of fruit species. The article concludes that there is a diversity between home gardens in terms of the richness, biological forms, abundance and area allocated to fruit species.

Mexico has attempted to strengthen its forest policy through the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) initiative, known as REDD+, involving the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, their sustainable management, as well as the conservation and increase of forest carbon stocks. During the period of REDD+ preparation in Mexico (2010-2017), an attempt was made to reframe forest policies to introduce a perspective of sustainable rural development through a broad process of participation by related sectors, which laid the foundations for the design and implementation of the National REDD+ Strategy (ENAREDD+). This article seeks to determine whether local forms of resource management were considered in the design and implementation of REDD+ pilot projects, and whether REDD+ interventions can create or increase the possibilities of cooperation or conflict. A research project with actors at the national, state and municipal levels shows how inertias in the design and early implementation of REDD+, rooted in power relations, jeopardize the achievement of their objectives. Likewise, it shows how the technocratic mitigation and adaptation policies applied to the forestry, conservation and rural development sectors are contradictory and weak, as are their social objectives, discouraging the local population from reducing emissions from land use change. If these trends continue beyond the preparatory stage, REDD+ implementation may not achieve the UNFCCC objectives or stakeholder expectations, thereby creating discouragement, discontent and conflict.

Even though Protected Areas (PAs) are one of the main mechanisms used by governments for the conservation of ecosystems, in Mexico the fulfilment of their objectives has been limited due to a predominantly ecological vision that usually does not consider the interests, the social structure and the culture of the stakeholders. These objectives could be more effectively reached through processes of social participation and broader inclusion in decision-making. The absence of these processes could also lead to the emergence or aggravation of socio-environmental conflicts. Based on the results of participatory appraisal, social cartography, interviews and participatory transects, we analyse the complex scenario of interests, resistances and collective actions around the PA Archipelago of Forests and Jungles of the Capital Region of the State of Veracruz, Mexico, and share reflections on the co-management of the territory and conservation schemes that are socially and environmentally fairer. We argue that the territorial perspective allows a more complex understanding of the actors and interests involved, which is necessary in the attempt to transform conflicts through collective action and thus contribute to socio-environmental processes.

Based on a case study in the Llanganates Sangay Ecological Corridor, this research analyzes the characteristics of land acquisition for the creation of private protected areas within the framework of the neoliberal conservation and strict conservation model. This study is based on the argument that contrary to its purported win-win approach, neoliberal conservation leads to processes of dispossession, displacement, and exclusion of local populations in the interest of large companies. Dispossession processes do not necessarily happen in traditionally violent ways but through increasingly sophisticated mechanisms, such as land acquisition. In this context, even though neoliberal conservation is presented as a mechanism for solving current environmental issues and achieving sustainable development, it can in fact be used for the expansion of the green economy.

This article analyzes the various forms of legitimacy (cognitive, moral, pragmatic) articulated in the organization of the collective brand Chackay, focusing on the spiny lobster fishing in the reserves of Sian Ka'an and Banco Chinchorro, Quintana Roo. Based on 36 semi-structured interviews with the members of the six fishing cooperatives operating in the study area, it was possible to analyze the legitimacy, representation, and difficulties, including local fishermen in the design and implementation of this environmental certification. The work shows that the predominance of economic interests on the conservationist arguments of the civil association that promoted this initiative conditioned its relationship with the actors that define local governance (fishermen cooperatives, non-government, government organizations). We conclude that environmental management instruments should pay special attention to the high heterogeneity of social and economic practices of the actors that participate in productive activities, in a specific territorial context.

Five Latin American countries are among the top ten coffee producers, and Mexico is one of them. In this country, coffee production represents one of the main economic activities. However, this activity is subject to recurrent crises, and peasant families constantly face challenges and develop strategies to overcome them. The objective of this work was to identify the historical transformations, threats, and developed strategies to overcome the different crises. The analysis was carried out with a heuristic method and the adaptive renewal cycle approach. Historical sources (secondary information) were reviewed and 143 interviews were conducted with coffee growers from eight municipalities in Chiapas, Mexico. Three major periods were identified: 1) arrival and consolidation of the coffee activity in Chiapas (102 years); 2) institutional period (44 years), and 3) organization for marketing (20 years). It is concluded that coffee cultivation is a complex and dynamic system that has endured different periods of crises and transformation; and that the adaptive renewal cycle approach can help understand current processes.

The objective of this work was to analyze how technicians, scientists, and local people who interact in an area of ​​the Paraná delta (Buenos Aires, Argentina) conceptualize and value the organic layer present in the wetlands of the region. Through an ethnographic approach and conducting in-depth interviews, the local ways of life were addressed. An analysis of discourses was carried out. In the first section, we highlight the diversity of existing forms to conceptualize the organic layer. Based on the dynamic and hybrid nature of scientific and local knowledge, we inquire about the ways in which the different actors recreate elements of meaning from different orders of discourse, and we show that local knowledge forms a local model. In the second section, we highlight how the valorization of the organic layer in this singular socio-historical context is debated and put into discussion, and we show that the degrees of appropriation of the environmental discourse depends on the participation in disputes over the definition of forms of use and appropriation of resources. Finally, we emphasize the importance of this type of analysis to contribute to the understanding of disputes between different actors during the process of the construction of territories.

In this text, the factors that in little more than a century fostered and led coffee growing in Chiapas, Mexico, are analyzed. As the coffee plantations spread to the interior of the state and based on the factors that made this possible, there is a periodization of the development of coffee growing. It is shown that coffee production is a process of socio-environmental evolution, evidenced by the transformation of large farms, from foreign to national owners, to more than a hundred social enterprises or cooperatives, mainly indigenous owners who produce coffee in complex agroforestry systems and on a family scale, articulated and organized at different levels. This shows a change in the way of conceiving coffee production. If at the beginning it was directed towards economic profitability promoted through specialization, technological dependence, and the export of the product, thus leaving a deep mark on the landscape, entered the 21st century, the productive rationality began to take the course towards sustainability. This is partly due to a combination of the market, productive diversification, non-dependence on external inputs, and small-scale production. It is a change related to traditional wisdom and against the current dominant globalization. Finally, it represents a phenomenon of social and environmental evolution derived from a historical biocultural resistance.

The paper highlights water service in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires-Argentina, where the debate over the quality and levels of arsenic has led to legal conflicts. One emblematic conflict took place in the municipality of Nueve de Julio, where the population organized and filed a legal claim that resulted in a court decision by the Supreme Court in 2014. After the demands and judicial requirements, a discussion forum was set up with various parties that enabled the signing of an agreement and the subsequent development of the infrastructure required to reduce arsenic. This article documents the process that took place from 2010 to 2016 and examines the current situation from the perspective of the stakeholders. It does so using a qualitative, methodological strategy that drew on primary sources, especially interviews with key informants, a direct survey and secondary sources that include documents of the organizations involved, sectoral legislation and newspaper articles.