Abstract
This article compares how indigenous residents in the Mosquitia Forest Corridor of Honduras and Nicaragua have responded to agricultural expansion in two distinct institutional environments: a reserve under public management and a reserve where the indigenous residents hold territorial rights. The article combines institutional analysis with ethnographically-based fieldwork to (1) identify whether the indigenous common-property systems in the Mosquitia remain robust when residents are confronted with privateproperty institutions and land markets introduced by colonists; and (2) examine the links between maintenance of the common-property systems and the broader institutional environment. The analysis pays particular attention to how the protected area policies in each reserve impact the transaction costs incurred in local rule-making and individual land use strategies in response to migrant farmers and ranchers. The findings suggest that the broader institutional environment, specifically the protected area policies and processes, significantly influence the transaction costs and risks involved in collective rule-making, and thereby impact the capacity of the indigenous residents to sustain their common-property systems.
Highlights
HOW TRADITIONAL PEOPLES respond to shocks such as major demographic shifts, new markets or technological change and the role that broader policy prescriptions have in influencing those responses is a vital question for environmental conservation and resource management (Richards 1997; Berkes et al 2003; Dietz et al 2003; Anderies et al 2004)
This article examines if and how indigenous residents adapt their common-property systems to frontier expansion and the impact that protected area governance has on their adaptation strategies
The following section describes (1) the pre-policy responses on the part of indigenous residents living in the cultural zone of Río Plátano and in Miskitu Indian Tasbaika Kum (MITK), Bosawas; (2) the policy changes implemented in each reserve in the mid-1990s; and (3) post-policy responses on the part of the Miskito
Summary
HOW TRADITIONAL PEOPLES respond to shocks such as major demographic shifts, new markets or technological change and the role that broader policy prescriptions have in influencing those responses is a vital question for environmental conservation and resource management (Richards 1997; Berkes et al 2003; Dietz et al 2003; Anderies et al 2004). Frontier forests are some of the last tracts of forest that are of sufficient size to support a full range of native species and remain relatively undisturbed (Bryant et al 1997) These forests are frequently the ancestral homelands of indigenous peoples who have governed the regions for centuries, often through a loosely designed system of common-property norms (Grosvenor et al 1992; Dodds 1994; House 1997; Stocks et al 2007)
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