Linking changes in ejido land tenure to changes in landscape patterns over 30 years across Yucatán, México

Abstract

Mexico’s ejidos are shifting away from community-managed, and toward individually managed lands. Shifting land tenure is a mechanism for modern agricultural development that drives changes to landscape patterns, and loss of mature forestland. Such forest conversion is conspicuous across Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Thus, Mexico’s federal government recently identified the peninsula as a high priority region for landscape conservation. However, few studies have examined the link between changes in ejido land tenure and changes in landscape patterns. We examined spatial-temporal relationships between shifting ejido land tenure and subsequent changes to landscape patterns among 710 ejidos (2.5 million ha) across the State of Yucatan. Our analysis focused on a series of years preceding and a series of years following the changes to Mexico’s constitution that legalized parcelization of ejido lands. Our research questions were (1) how have land cover patterns changed over time and (2) after two decades of legal parcelization, did land cover patterns differ between individually managed and community-managed ejido lands? To investigate these questions, we used recent and historic remotely sensed satellite images to map and analyze changes to land cover patterns over 30 years, and related them to changes in land tenure arrangement, particularly among ejidos pre- and post-parcelization. We show that changes in ejido land tenure contributed to changes in land cover patterns, and that individually managed areas and highly parcelized ejidos exhibited a much greater increase in crop and grassland cover, and therefore a much greater increase in deforested lands, than common areas and community-managed ejidos. Moreover, we show that individually managed areas and highly parcelized ejidos exhibited higher annual deforestation rates than common areas and community-managed ejidos. Therefore, our research demonstrates that even in dry tropical forested regions, common property protects forests. We conclude that individually managed and privatized lands, especially for agricultural development, can threaten the conservation potential of community-managed landscapes in Yucatan and beyond.