Contradictory distributive principles and land tenure govern benefit-sharing of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Chiapas, Mexico

ERL graphic iopscience_header.jpg ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT • THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ISOPEN ACCESS Contradictory distributive principles and land tenure govern benefit-sharing of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Chiapas, Mexico Santiago Izquierdo-Tort1, Esteve Corbera2, Adrian Martin3, Julia Carabias Lillo4 and Jérôme Dupras1 Accepted Manuscript online 12 April 2022 • © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd What is an Accepted Manuscript? DownloadAccepted Manuscript PDF Download PDF Turn on MathJax Share this article Share this content via email Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Mendeley (opens new window) Article information Abstract Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are incentive-based instruments that provide conditional economic incentives for natural resources management. Research has shown that when economic incentives are parachuted into rural communities, participation and benefits are collectively negotiated and shared. However, we know little about how benefit-sharing evolves over time in community-based PES. To address this gap, we examine distributional justice in four communities of the state of Chiapas, Mexico, which participate in a PES programme, and we assess how local justice principles compare with the programme's goals. Our analysis reveals patterns of both continuity and change in how communities share PES benefits, which reflect a suite of contradictory justice principles, including entitlement, merit, need, and equality. The studied communities distribute PES benefits by providing differentiated compensation to diverse groups of landholders via private cash payments, whilst also attending non-landed community members through public infrastructure investments. We show that benefit-sharing is strongly influenced by pre-existing land tenure features and associated norms, which in the study area include three different types of individual and common-property. Yet, we also show that communities continuously adjust benefit-sharing arrangements to navigate distributional challenges emerging from programme engagement. Overall, we provide novel insights on the evolution, diversity, and complexity of distributive justice in community-based PES and we advocate for a context-sensitive, nuanced, and dynamic account of justice in incentive-based conservation

Seed germination of woody legumes from deciduous tropical forest of southern mexico

Seed germination experiments were conducted on six woody leguminous species which are widely used by rural inhabitants of a mountainous tropical subhumid region in southern Mexico. Conditions for optimum germination were sought in nursery conditions by applying various hot water treatments (1 min, 3 min, 5 min and 10 min in boiling water) and scarification to seeds of differing storage durations. Lysiloma divaricata germinated promptly without any treatment. Leucaena esculenta and L. macrophylla seeds germinated more readily after boiling (1 min), regardless of storage duration. Acacia species (A. cochliacantha, A. farnesiana and A. pennatula) had optimum germination with scarification treatments for all storage durations, while short-time boiling (1 min, 3 min) of their seeds increased germination only moderately. Seeds of species typical of primary vegetation lost viability sooner than those of species more frequent in disturbed areas. From these results, seed handling routines and germination pre-treatments practices can be derived for these species, all of which can potentially be used in reforestation on degraded soils

Environmental deterioration in rural Mexico: an examination of the concept

Mexico, like many other countries worldwide, faces an environmental crisis of enormous proportions. While in its urban dimension environmental problems are more similar to those of developed countries, in rural areas they are analogous to those prevailing in developing countries. In rural areas, which are largely devoted to food production based on traditional methods, environmental concerns are mainly related to phenomena such as deforestation and soil erosion, and not to chemical pollution or ozone-layer depletion, which are the primary concerns of the broad public. The future food production in these regions and the possibility of improving the life quality of their inhabitants depend on our understanding of these kinds of problems, and our capacity to confront them. An overview of the theoretical framework on environmental deterioration reveals a lack of definition of the concepts and terms related to this issue. Several terms, such as ''desertification'' and ''fragmentation,'' among others, are widely used by ecologists but are clearly not synonymous with environmental deterioration. A consequence of this vagueness is the lack of clear criteria to differentiate areas that are only moderately modified from those in which true deterioration has occurred. Also, unified methods to efficiently evaluate environmental deterioration in rural areas are lacking. We briefly present a case study in which environmental deterioration was evaluated in La Montana, an extremely poor and climatically and topographically heterogeneous rural region inhabited by indigenous people in southern Mexico. Three deterioration categories are recognized based on degree of human influence, proportion of vegetation cover, and soil erosion severity. Use of air photogrammetry supplemented with field surveys revealed that 13% of La Montana is already damaged (i.e., lacking native vegetation and affected, perhaps irreversibly, by severe erosion), while 36% is altered (i.e., where native vegetation is substantially modified, but productive activities are still possible). In turn, almost three quarters of the land in the latter category is at high risk of becoming damaged. An analysis of the patterns of land-use changes around selected villages for the period 1979-1992 showed local annual deforestation rates ranging between 1 and 17%, depending upon climatic conditions. Based on the conceptual review and the analysis of the case study, we suggest that environmental deterioration comprises at least three clearly distinct dimensions: the abiotic setting, the biological attributes, and the social characteristics of the process. Finally, we define environmental deterioration as any modification of the environment that implies a reduction or loss of its physical and biological qualities, caused by natural phenomena or human activities, ultimately representing a decrease in the availability of ecosystem goods and services to human populations. The methods used to evaluate environmental deterioration at La Montana allowed us to separate modifications that cause deterioration from those that do not. This investigation, carried out in a relatively short time and with a minimum financial investment, yielded a satisfactory assessment of the state of the environment at the regional and community scales, recognizing early indicators of deterioration. This approach may be particularly useful in rural regions that share many characteristics with La Montana, such as critical environmental problems, extreme poverty, and insufficient background information about these issues

Structure and floristic composition of the lowland rain forest of Los Tuxtlas, Mexico

Physiognomy, structure and floristic composition of one hectare of lowland tropical rain forest was studied in detail at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. Physiognomically, the Los Tuxtlas forest should be classified as lsquolowland tropical high evergreen rain forestrsquo. The forest showed a closed canopy at 30–35 m. Of all woody, non-climbing species with a DBHge1.0 cm 89.4% (94.5% of all individuals) were evergreen, 25.4% (59.5% of the individuals) had compound leaves, and over 80% of species (and individuals) had leaves in the notophyll and mesophyll size classes. The forest structure was characterized by a low density (2976 individuals with a DBHge1.0 cm, 346 individuals with a DBHge10.0 cm, per ha, excluding vines) with an average basal area (38.1 m2, DBHge1.0 cm, 34.9 m2, DBHge10.0 cm, per ha, excluding vines). This was attributed to the relative maturity of the forest on the study plot. The study plot contained 234 species (11 208 individuals with a height ge0.5 m), of which 55.1% (34.8% of individuals) were trees, 9.4% (6.8%) shrubs, 3.4% (44.3%) palms, 20.1% (5.2%) vines, 6.8% (8.7%) herbs and 5.1% (0.3%) of unknown lifeform. Furthermore, 58 species of epiphytes and hemi-epiphytes were found. Diversity of trees, shrubs and palms with a DBHge1.0 cm was calculated as Shannon-Wiener index (4.65), Equitability index (0.65), and Simpson index (0.10). The dominance-diversity curve showed a lognormal form, characteristic for tropical rain forest. The community structure was characterized by a relative dominance of Astrocaryum mexicanum in the understorey, Pseudolmedia oxyphyllaria in the middle storeys, and Nectandra ambigens in the canopy. Species population structures of 31 species showed three characteristic patterns, differentiated by recruitment: continuously high, discontinuously high, and continuously low recruitment. Height/diameter and crown cover/diameter diagrams suggested a very gradual shift from height growth to crown growth during tree development. Forest turnover was calculated as 138 years. Compared to other tropical rain forests the Los Tuxtlas forest had 1. similar leaf physiognomical characteristics, 2. a lower diversity, 3. a lower density, 4. an average basal area, and 5. a slow canopy turnover

Growth analysis of nine multi-purpose woody legumes native from southern México

The growth of nine multipurpose woody legumes was evaluated in nursery conditions. These species, belonging to the genera Acacia, Leucaena, Lysiloma, Prosopis and Pithecellobium, inhabit both primary and secondary tropical deciduous and thorn forests. The total length of the experiments was 165 days. At a variable frequency, the following four variables were measured: (1) relative growth rate (RGR), (2) root/shoot ratio (R/S), (3) root length/root dry weight ratio (RL/RDW), and (4) stem length (SL). The temporal behavior of these variables differed greatly among species. A direct relationship between seed weight and initial biomass production was initially found; however, the effect of seed size on biomass production was lost as plants aged. At the initial harvest, RGR values did not differ significantly among species, but they did at the end of the experiment; Pithecellobium dulce had the lowest final RGR. The three Acacia species had the highest biomass productions and highest R/S ratios but the lowest RL/RDW ratios; A. farnesiana and Lysiloma divaricata had the largest mean SL, whereas the smallest mean SL corresponded to the two Leucaena species and to Lysiloma acapulcensis. Several recommendations concerning the management of plants in the nursery and the optimal timing for transplanting the seedlings to reforestation sites are provided