Local perspectives in conservation politics: the case of the Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, Yucatán, México

Abstract

Local perspectives are presented on the conflicts and contradictions in the Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, one of 10 priority reserve areas in México that receive financing from the World Bank and other development and conservation institutions. There are four villages into the reserve, whose total population ranges from 800 to 2500 inhabitants. At this reserve, decision-makers and administrators have focused on biological conservation, failing to understand the social and political relations of the local people, which are strongly affected by globalization and modern conservation policy. Modern conservation is a western discourse on nature, is a kind of “licence to conserve”, analogous to an automobile driver's licence. Conservation in Ría Lagartos means prohibition to the local population hence conflicts frequently arise between them and both local and federal authorities. However, there is an urgent need to move forward and recognise the diversity of discourses on nature that give rise to different kinds of knowledge and practices of conservation variously called popular, traditional, indigenous, and folk. This paper discusses the institutionalization of conservation in a natural protected area (biosphere reserve) in the northwest of Yucatán Peninsula. The researcher initially established rapport with the communities of this region more than 10 years ago, working on various ethnographic research projects from then to the present. This long-term relationship has (1) deepened the level of trust, (2) contributed substantially to the background knowledge critical for identifying local factors of importance, and (3) provided information necessary for the proper wording of questions in the local parlance. The research reported here continued to use the same ethnographic approach used in the former research projects, an ethnographic method including participant observation and informal interviews in homes, work places, local stores, and other places normally frequented by the local consultants. The research reported in this article was done from August 1996 to July 1997 in the three communities of the Biosphere Reserve of Ría Lagartos: Río Lagartos, San Felipe and Las Coloradas.