Climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss are deeply intertwined phenomena. Local communities play a fundamental role as stewards of forests and other ecosystems worldwide. In my dissertation, I explore the relevance of three factors that affect the success of these communities to protect their common-pool resources: (1) indigenous political institutions, (2) access to secure property rights, and (3) exposure to highly invasive economic activities. I study the case of Mexico, where more than 32,000 rural communities own a substantial share of the country’s forests, thus creating a natural laboratory to understand these relationships.
Traditional Governance and the Stewardship of the Commons: Evidence from Mexico
Manuscript in Preparation
A vast strand of research in the social sciences has shown that local communities can steward their ecosystems without the intervention of states and markets. What makes some of them better able to engage in sustainable behaviors than others? In this paper, I posit that the presence of long-standing indigenous political institutions is associated with less environmental degradation. However, certain types of politically-motivated reforms in the relationship between states and communities could diminish their ability to protect their natural resources. To test these claims, I analyze the deforestation and collective action trajectories of more than 16,000 thousand rural communities in Mexico, employing satellite imagery and fine-grained administrative records. Moreover, I study a quasi-natural experiment in Oaxaca state, where the 1995 constitutional reform created an exogenous source of geographic and temporal variation in the recognition of indigenous electoral procedures.
Access to Secure Property Rights and the Stewardship of the Commons in Mexico
Manuscript in preparation
Access to secure property rights is one of the most cost-effective strategies to reduce environmental degradation and realize the full potential of community stewardship of the commons. In this paper, I study the implementation of the PROCEDE program in Mexico, a massive policy to certify land titles for more than 32,000 rural communities in the country, on patterns of land use change. In addition, I investigate the relevance of other land justice policies that have received less attention from scholars, including community governance training programs and efforts to increase awareness about land tenure legal procedures.