The forest of Envies: 100 Years of Social, Liberal and Environmental Policies in the National Parks of Mexico (1910-2013)
Mexico’s agrarian and forest history established an original forestry land tenure system based upon social property. Mexican National Parks have a unique place in North America where such protected areas have more commonly been under a strict and sole control of Federal authorities. In Mexico, they are places of intense complexity where laws and regulations, economic and social needs are intertwined with policy issues. The Mexican Revolution’s legacy ensured tenure rights to agrarian communities that are contested by governments’ conservation policies : on the one hand, parks’ communities have been excluded from forest uses, while in the same time, logging companies, both private and para-governmental, have been allowed to operate within Protected Areas. This paper intends to retrace the evolution of public policies regarding control and access over forest lands and resources in Mexico, focusing particularly on the Nevado de Toluca National Park. The analysis focuses on how public policies, both at the national and local park levels, have overlapped for about a century. The lack of clear resource management policies that would be readable to members of the local communities – whether legally in relation to their agrarian rights, or illegally in light of the law regarding National Parks – is the cause of major difficulties resonating with wider problems of governance within this protected territory.