Land Use Conflicts In Chiapas, Mexico

First, orthodox political-economic explanations emphasize broad (and frequently external) forces driving the conflict. These forces include:

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• PRI's (Institutional Revolutionary Party which is a a political party in Mexico)
• Neglect of agricultural workers as clients
• Difficulties of economic restructuring
• The inadequacies of Mexican electoral reform
• The fear of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)
• The class basis of land concentration
• Resurgent Mayan identity
• Generalized poverty.

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These explanations outline the national and international circumstances in which the crisis evolved, however, the role of ecological and demographic forces remains obscure.

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Philip Howard suggest that the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas was a case of conflict caused by environmental scarcity such as:

• deforestation
• soil erosion
• biodiversity loss

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Another possibility is that the EZLN was prompted into rebellion by problems based on the maldistribution of resources exacerbated by land degradation and population growth

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These explanations fail to define the connections between degradation and the Zapatista rebellion (which occurred on the New Year's of 1994)

• The Zapatistas are not fighting for conservation issues as they are commonly understood by Northern environmentalists
• As a group, these environmental explanations of the conflict are often ideologically biased, describing the main actors (such as evil landowners and innocent peasants).

The third reason for rebellion and conflict in Chiapas falls between these two perspectives. These explanations include:

• The maldistribution of natural resources - especially land - as as the central grievance of the EZLN (the Zapatistas)
• The government’s focus should be on microeconomic and micropolitical issues such as market access, peasant agriculture, local corruption, and the control of PRI political bosses.

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In this presentation, we will show how the Chiapas revolution was the result of these factors, how the land use conflicts had/will affect the area and country socially, economically, politically, and environmentally.

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Impacts

OF THE LAND USE CONFLICT

SOCIAL IMPACTS

• They blocked the road and hid
• When the people came out they would shoot them
• A 2-year old died from exposure
• Most of the targeted people are women
• A man died by suicide after expressing fear and hopelessness in the face of his and his family's displacement
• The initial attacks on October 18 resulted in the shooting death of one man. Since then more than 5,000 people from Chalchihuitan have fled their homes into the surrounding mountains.
• Most of the displaced are women, elderly, children and infants who are struggling to survive as temperatures drop to near freezing every night.
• At least 10 people have died from exposure to the cold temperatures and lack of medical care, including two babies, two toddlers and five elderly people.

POLITICAL IMPACTS

• Knowing that there's land conflict can make Mexico look like a violent country
• This could impact Mexico's traveling economy which makes the president look bad

ECONOMIC IMPACTS

• Chiapas has the highest poverty rate of 74.7% among all states
• The government isn't paying a lot of attention to the economic issues

• Most landscapes in Chiapas have been subjected to a change in land use, which has lead to various environmental problems in a highland-lowland interactive system.
• Demographic pressure in the upper part of the Sierra Madre and in the Altos de Chiapas has lead to a growing need for land
• A growing need for land is responsible for the advancement of the frontier of settlement into steeper parts of the Sierra and toward Lacandonia.
• This has also resulted in soil erosion and leaching causing further degrading in many areas. These impacts along with elevated runoff rates also have a heavy impact on the forelands, which manifested in September 1998 in the form of disastrous floods and devastation in the Soconusco plain.
• Nobody will travel to mexico if its dangerous, so there will me some economic loss in travelling

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

• In the land use conflicts occurring in Chiapas, there are also a few types of environmental scarcity happening as well:
• Demand-induced scarcity (caused by population growth or increased per capita resource consumption)
• In Chiapas, population grew from 1.57m. in 1970 to 3.2m. in 1998
• In the Lacandon Rain Forest of Chiapas, the population increased from 12,000 to 300,000 over the same period by population growth and immigrants searching for new cultivable lands
• Supply-induced scarcity (caused by degradation and depletion of environmental resources)
• The Lacandon Rain Forest of Chiapas diminished from 1.5m hectares (before the conflict) to 0.5m hectares today, with most of the decline since 1970
• Resulting soil erosion could lead to 20% loss in agricultural produce
• Structural-induced scarcity (caused by an unbalanced distribution of resources that severely affects less powerful groups in the society)
• The land use conflicts could be a result of an unbalanced distribution of resources that affects less powerful groups in society

• Most landscapes in Chiapas have been subjected to a change in land use, which has lead to various environmental problems in a highland-lowland interactive system.
• Demographic pressure in the upper part of the Sierra Madre and in the Altos de Chiapas has lead to a growing need for land
• A growing need for land is responsible for the advancement of the frontier of settlement into steeper parts of the Sierra and toward Lacandonia.
• This has also resulted in soil erosion and leaching causing further degrading in many areas. These impacts along with elevated runoff rates also have a heavy impact on the forelands, which manifested in September 1998 in the form of disastrous floods and devastation in the Soconusco plain.

Environmental Impacts (cont.)

• Most landscapes in Chiapas have been subjected to a change in land use, which has lead to various environmental problems in a highland-lowland interactive system.
• Demographic pressure in the upper part of the Sierra Madre and in the Altos de Chiapas has lead to a growing need for land
• A growing need for land is responsible for the advancement of the frontier of settlement into steeper parts of the Sierra and toward Lacandonia.
• This has also resulted in soil erosion and leaching causing further degrading in many areas. These impacts along with elevated runoff rates also have a heavy impact on the forelands, which manifested in September 1998 in the form of disastrous floods and devastation in the Soconusco plain.

Why is the land being fought over?

Why is the land being fought over?

Chiapas is one of the most poorest states in Mexico, or are they. The southern states of Mexico are rich in oil, natural gas, forests, and farmland. In most southern states, and particularly in Chiapas, these resources are extracted by the national government for the use of Mexico’s central and northern states. Chiapas produces 5 percent of the nation’s oil, 12 percent of its natural gas, 46 percent of its coffee, and 48 percent of its hydroelectric power, yet only a tiny portion of the wealth generated from these resources is returned to the state for development programs. Therefore people are targeting the land of Chiapas for their good resources that the people aren't using to it's full potential.

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What might cause the conflicts to be resolved?

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