Unraveling complex relations between forest-cover change and conflicts through spatial and relational analyses
Pérez Llorente, Irene (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental)
Ramírez, M. Isabel (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental)
Paneque Gálvez, Jaime (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental)
Orozco, Claudio Garibay (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental)
González-López, Rafael (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date:	2019
Abstract:	Despite the increasing prevalence of forest-cover change and conflicts, most studies have been unable to unravel the complex relations between the two processes. We attribute this failure to methodological limitations. We put forward an alternative approach that combines different datasets (remote sensing, GIS, local narratives, official censuses, newspaper articles), methods (spatial and relational analyses), and scales (subregions, economic sectors, land-based activities) to create a robust explanation of the relations between different intensities of forest-cover change and conflict in the Meseta Purépecha region, central Mexico. This is an important forest region, inhabited by indigenous and mestizo peasants; it has a worldwide reputation for community forestry and is also the epicenter of international avocado production. Forest-cover change is intense and there are recurrent episodes of conflict. We clustered communities in three subregions according to their patterns of forest-cover change. We analyzed the spatial patterns of forest-cover change and conflicts and we characterized the structure and function of the different economic sectors to unravel the nonlinear, interdependent (and sometimes contradictory) relations among these processes. We found that avocado production has differentially shaped the composition and working of society within each subregion, leading to three diverging patterns. Avocado production has provoked conflicts over landownership and over illegal logging in nearby areas. In some areas, a low incidence of conflicts over forest clearance might be explained by high profits, coercion, and violence. We suggest that, by combining spatial and relational analyses, we can integrate and check the congruence of nonequivalent representations from quantitative sources and observant participation at different scales and explain the heterogeneity that processes display across space. Our methodological approach can thus improve our understanding of similar and other complex and uncertain environmental problems elsewhere, especially when accurate or appropriate data are missing.
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Central Mexico ; Complexity theory ; Environmental conflicts ; Land-cover/Land-use change ; Uncertainty
Published in:	Ecology and society, Vol. 24, Issue 3 (September 2019) , art. 3, ISSN 1708-3087

DOI: 10.5751/ES-10992-240303

14 p, 3.7 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles