Population, Land Use, and Deforestation in The Sierra de Lacandón National Park, Petén,, Guatemala*

Transcription

1 Population, Land Use, and Deforestation in The Sierra de Lacandón National Park, Petén,, Guatemala* 2001 Proceedings of the Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Research Community October 06th to 08th Rio de Janeiro David L. Carr Department of Geography and Carolina Population Center University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Project funding: The Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright-Hays Foundation, NASA, The Rand Corporation, Institute for the Study of World Politics, and The Nature Conservancy. *Due to space constraints, this is a reduced version of the original paper.

2 Abstract Rapid in-migration during the past ten years has led to the conversion of 10% of the forest canopy of the Sierra de Lacandón National Park (SLNP) to cornfields. Where have migrants come from? Why did they leave their communities of origin, and why have colonists settled this core zone of Guatemala s Maya Biosphere Reserve? What colonist land management strategies have spurred such dramatic forest clearing? Within Latin America, much attention has been focused on the ecological devastation of the Brazilian Amazon. Yet from 1990 to 1995, the rate of forest clearing in Central America outpaced Brazil s rate by almost six times (FAO, 1995). At 2% per annum, Guatemala was among the world s leaders in deforestation. Most of Guatemala s recent forest loss has occurred in the vast departamento of Petén, and has atrophied the buffer zone surrounding the Maya Biosphere Reserve, the heart of the largest contiguous tropical forest in Central America, LaSelvaMaya. Road-building in the late 1980s opened the SLNP s great forest expanse to land-poor colonists from rural areas throughout Guatemala. Today farmers occupy plots up to 15 kilometers into the park. There is an immediate ecological concern for the continued expansion of the agricultural frontier further into the SLNP, the most ecologically precious core zone of the MBR. This paper links interview data from 28 communities of high out-migration to the SLNP with household demographic and farm characteristics and land use decisions among farm households in eight communities in the SLNP to understand migration to the frontier, and how subsequent land use contributes to forest clearing. In total over five hundred interviews were conducted by the author from 1998 to [1] It is evident that a precursor to forest elimination is the decision of people to leave their homes elsewhere and to settle a resource frontier. Yet scant research exists on rural-rural migration in Latin America, let alone on the link between rural flows and forest cover change. Preliminary findings indicate that the forces explaining forest clearing in the SLNP (poverty, unequal land concentrations, population growth, lack of credit, technical assistance, infrastructure and education) also help explain out-migration to the SLNP in the first place. The results of this study may suggest that improving health care and contraceptive access and stimulating sustainable and equitable economic growth in migration origin areas may mitigate population pressures on tropical forests like the SLNP. Conversely, investing in conservation and sustainable land use only in protected forests may serve only as a band-aid solution. As long as poverty, unequal land concentration, and population growth conspire to force subsistence farm families to leave their origin communities, treating only the scars of deforestation will fail to stem the hemorrhaging flow of colonists the agricultural frontier. [1] I thank several sources for making the research for this paper possible, including the Fulbright-Hays Commission, The Institute for the Study of World Politics, The Rand Corporation, the University of North Carolina Institute of Latin American Studies, The Carolina Population Center, The Mellon Foundation, The Social Science Research Council, and The Nature Conservancy.

3 Exploring Colonization and Deforestation in the Sierra de Lacandón National Park Maya Biosphere Reserve N W E Sierra de Lacandon National Park S Guatemala Miles

4 Research Methods and Results Research Methods in the Area of Migration Destination: The Sierra de Lacandón National Park Interviews with community leaders in all of the twenty- eight communities responsible for LULCC in the SLNP. Surveys with 279 men and 220 women from nine communities.

5 CLEARED LAND Adjusted R Square: Unstandardized Standardized B Std. Error Beta t Sig. (Constant) Household size Educational Achievement Land in previous residence Off-farm labor Rents land Chainsaw Ownership Farm size Distance to Road Additional agricultural fields Duration on the Farm Soil fertility Pasture Velvet Bean and/or herbicides Crops Pasture in Intends to have cattle in Dependent Variable: Cleared land sig. = or >.01 sig. = or >.10

6 The Site of Migration Origin: Why did people migrate to the SLNP in the first place? A common denominator of the geographically diverse migration source areas: unequal access to resources due to land concentration, underemployment, and rapid population growth.

7 Migration Origin Data Percent of adults engage in in seasonal migration from 1989 to 1999 Men 50% Women 50% Principle Destinations Primary employment Guatemala City Factory or Service worker 30% Local towns and plantations Agricultural laborer/service worker 30% Peten Agricultural laborer 20% Alta Verapaz Plantation laborer 10% USA Factory or Service worker 10% Percent of adults permanently out-migrating from 1989 to 1999 Men 10% Women 10% Principal Destinations Primary employment Guatemala City Factory or Service worker 35% Peten Agriculural day laborer 35% USA Factory or Service worker 10% Other Plantation laborer 10% Principal pushes/pulls Work 35% Land 30% Improve living standard/education 20% Natural disasters/env. degradation 10%