Woody Cover and Local Farmers' Perceptions of Active Pasturelands in La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve Buffer Zone, Mexico

Colibrí Sanfiorenzo-Barnhard,Luis García-Barrios,Elvia Meléndez-Ackerman,Romeo Trujillo-Vásquez

doi:10.1659/mrd.00013

Abstract

La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve—created in 1995 in Chiapas, Mexico—is well known for its biodiversity. Its buffer zone, harboring the upper “Tablón” river basin, has been intensively managed by peasants for 48 years. We carried out interviews with cattle producers at the Los Ángeles ejido, coupled with field surveys of vegetation presence, to determine the nature and allocation of different vegetation associations and their relation to indicators of tree regeneration (sapling presence). Our data showed that 96% of the producers surveyed owned areas with open pastures, and 83% owned at least 1 patch of forested pastures where cattle browse. For oak-forested pastures, the results suggest a trend of high sapling presence with high tree cover. In contrast, for deciduous pastures, the results suggest a trend of high sapling presence with intermediate tree cover. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that woody vegetation within grazing areas may facilitate natural tree recruitment around reserves. Furthermore, these vegetation cover results suggest that within the pasturelands found today in the Los Ángeles ejido, some ranchers may be inadvertently conducting practices that are consistent with agro-silvo-pastoral systems.

Highlights

UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program has established biosphere reserves with the purpose of trying to integrate biodiversity conservation and sustainable development
Biosphere reserves are designed with a core area and a surrounding buffer zone, which should in principle reduce the human pressure on biodiversity loss in the core area
Open pastures had the highest percentage of bare ground (18%) and an average of 72% grass cover

Summary

Introduction

UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program has established biosphere reserves with the purpose of trying to integrate biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Biosphere reserves are designed with a core area (for biodiversity conservation) and a surrounding buffer zone (for sustainable development), which should in principle reduce the human pressure on biodiversity loss in the core area. With 26 established biosphere reserves covering 71% of the nation’s total land area (CONANP 2007), it has become increasingly important to know whether they are achieving their conservation objectives. Figueroa and Sanchez-Cordero (2008) carried out a national-level evaluation of land-use and land-cover change between 1993 and 2002 to assess the effectiveness of natural protected areas (NPA) in Mexico. Biosphere reserves had the highest proportion of effective areas when compared with national parks and other NPA. La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve, created in 1995 in Chiapas, Mexico, was one of them

Methods

Results

Conclusion