Gonzalez Cruz, María Gabriela; (2020) Ethnography of Campesinos: Political Ecology and Conservation of Biodiversity in a Man and Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

In 2015 countries in the United Nations committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Some of these goals refer to preserving biodiversity and ending poverty and hunger in rural areas. There is insufficient knowledge of how these goals might be accomplished in collaboration with local communities. In Mexico, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, rural areas are inhabited by campesinos: small-scale farmers and landowners. The present dissertation focuses on the livelihood of these local actors and discusses their economic strategy in relation to conservation discourses and conservation practices. I adopted a political ecology perspective and combined anthropological methods with ecological observations to developed fieldwork in ejido Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, a community inside the Man and Biosphere Reserve (MABR) La Sepultura, Mexico. Chapter 1 establishes the theoretical approach to this dissertation and describes the methods used. Chapter 2 explains who is the campesino and points out the central perspectives on conservation and political ecology in Mexico. Chapter 3 analyses the history of the ejido Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, and the role of campesinos in managing a temperate forest and a successional dynamic. Chapter 4 analyses the livelihood strategy of campesinos and explains its interplay with conservation projects promoted by La Sepultura. Chapter 5 illustrates how birds move through the landscape using both the mature vegetation of the forest and the surrounding successional vegetation as habitat. Chapter 6 explores current environmental and social movements in Mexico, and the growing claims of campesinos at La Sepultura. Finally, in Chapter 7, I argue that conservation projects can be a tool for global and local interests to coincide. By recognising the human rights of campesinos and paying attention to their livelihood, conservation agencies move beyond ecological discourses and contribute to sustainability and the SDGs.

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