Conservation as Coming Together

Nature conservation is always incomplete and under negotiation. Ecological and cultural communities dynamically evolve and change in response to new economic incentives, tourism, and climate change. Researchers from Guardians of the Maya Forest demonstrate some of the far-reaching effects of this process in the Maya Forest. Using the lens of transboundary conservation in the UNESCO biosphere reserve system, the researchers have demonstrated the ways a transboundary conservation reserve provides a political and cultural alternative to a national park or a fortress model of conservation.

These findings are in conversation with research on transboundary areas within the larger American hemisphere. In particular, cultural-ecological regions including tropical Amazonia, across the widest breast of South America encompassing nine separate nations and Patagonia, the temperate region at the tip of the continent across the much-contested borderland between Argentina and Chile.

The major distinction between the Maya Forest and the Amazonian and Patagonian ecological regions is the scale. The smaller footprint of the Maya Forest, while still allowing for conservation dialogue across communities, allows a novel setting for understanding how communities can transcend the nations to which they belong for larger goals. It also helps demonstrate the potential benefits of habitat continuity across political jurisdictions. The transnational and translocal dynamics of communities entangled within a designated nature reserve provide mechanisms and incentives for communities to hold together across otherwise divisive political arrangements.

One useful lens with which to view Biosphere Reserves is through the idea of a Nature State. A concept developed by a collective of historians and geographers that appeared in The Nature State: Rethinking the History of Conservation edited by Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, Matthew Kelly, Claudia Leal, and Emily Wakild. We argued that across time and states, many nations found it compelling for a variety of reasons to not just claim nature to extract resources but to claim nature for the state to protect it. Laako and her multidisciplinary team of colleagues take this concept into the recent past and demonstrate the enduring relevance of nature protection and its potential to unify, not just divide, communities.

Biosphere reserves as such provide a mechanism for local communities to bridge national and political boundaries for their own sovereignty and the integrity of nonhuman species as well.

Although it is not often recognized as so, Latin American countries have promoted conservation as a viable model to bring communities together in respect for nature for over one hundred years. These early innovations have not served as models stuck in time, such as the supposed Yellowstone fortress model, but loose and dynamic strategies that have responded to critique and evolved in communication with communities in various settings. The ecological cycles of neo-tropical forests in particular can prove to be responsive and radical places to understand conservation as a way to resist extractive and destructive resource use. Biosphere reserves as such provide a mechanism for local communities to bridge national and political boundaries for their own sovereignty and the integrity of nonhuman species as well.

Transboundary conservation has been interpreted as a top-down movement led by international organizations. One associated development has been the militarization of linked conservation areas but little attention has been paid to the opportunities for solidarity in non-military forms. Laako et al. nicely demonstrated the important work on the ground of landscape governance as an end in itself and a critical demonstration of local-to-local relations since the 1990s.

References:
Agrawal, Arun, and Kent Redford. (2009) Conservation and Displacement: An Overview. Conservation and Society 7, no. 1: 1-10.

King, Brian, and Sharon Wilcox. (2008) Peace Parks and Jaguar Trails: Transboundary Conservation in a Globalizing World. GeoJournal 71, no. 4: 221-31.

Lunstrum, Elizabeth. (2016) Green grabs, land grabs and the spatiality of displacement: eviction from M ozambique’s Limpopo National Park, Area 48, no. 2: 142-152.

Miniconi, Renaud, and Sylvain Guyot. (2010) Conflicts and Cooperation in the Mountainous Mapuche Territory (Argentina): The Case of the Nahuel Huapi National Park. Journal of Alpine Research 98, no. 1.

EMILY WAKILD
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Embryos of the Fennoscandian Greenbelt

The transboundary agreements for the Maya Forest conservation have UNESCO’s recognition and the forest is also sustained by biosphere reserves assembled by the same United Nations’ organisation. These reserves are founded and maintained by multiscale co-associations aiming at advancing local compounds of conservation and development efforts. The biosphere reserve-model has in practice, as the authors of The Guardians of the Maya Forest argue, become a viable alternative to the North-American national park-model – which has been criticised for its imperial motives and tendency to see nature as an aesthetic landscape viewed from a distance.

The UNESCO-model has also stimulated the regional biosphere reserve process in North Karelia, Eastern Finland. The Reserve, founded in 1992, has become an integral part of the Fennoscandian Greenbelt stretching from the banks of the Barents Sea to the shores of the Gulf of Finland along the border zone between Finland, Norway and Russia. The geopolitical turbulence due to Russian military aggressions in Ukraine has currently frozen the transborder cooperation but, however, lessons and conclusions can be drawn from the decades of Biosphere and Greenbelt activities by the border. Below, thus, a few key remarks on the ‘Belt politics’ will be presented, tracing and highlighting the embryos of post-imperial conservation.

In general, and foremostly, the Greenbelt experiences do guide toward a conservation approach that serves the protection of both ecological and cultural values in a multiscale setting. First, as was learned in the Belt promotion, this kind of approach needs to calibrate the planetary concerns with the rights of local and Indigenous communities struggling for existence under the domination of leading imperial regimes. In this respect, by the Greenbelt, the lands-and-lives of the Sámi peoples, as the one and only Indigenous group in the European Union, deserve a particular attention. This type of multiscale conservation approach could result in a network of protected homelands that would allow local communities (of humans and non-humans) to develop endemic life-modes of their own.

Second, the Greenbelt lessons underline that conservation decisions have to respond to ongoing ecosystem changes due to shifts in climate conditions. The protected Greenbelt optionally serves as a guarantee for the species to adjust to socioenvironmental changes in their surroundings. The ecological corridor would let the species move northwards under the influence of warming climate. Hence, the corridor strategy could function as an extension and correction to the old in-situ conservation of strictly-defined areas. Moreover, the Greenbelt has also served as an ecological link between the extensive old growth forests in Russia and the more fragmented ones at the western side of the Belt. The maintenance of the highly-threatened bear and wolf populations in Finland are, for example, much dependent on the ecological permeability of the border. In this respects, rising and expanding border fences at the Russian border, suggested in Finland due to Russian war activities in Ukraine, would dramatically affect the Belt ecologies and conservation strains.

Third, the degraded lands, mires, waterways and forests by the yet fragmented Belt could be returned into carbon sinks. Today, the Belt is practically set up by isolated nature conservation areas surrounded by landscapes of intense extraction. The rewilded Belt areas could serve as effective carbon sinks and, in addition, they would definitely benefit several species of flora and fauna, birds in particular. Under feasible climate conditions, the boreal forest as a rule recovers relatively fast when freed from extractive exploitation. Bird paradises could be re-established by rewetting the drained mires back to carbon sinks as, for example, the successful restoration of Linnunsuo in North Karelia shows. In addition, abolition of water-power stations from salmon rivers would bring along important ecological and social gains. This has been clearly witnessed during the removal of water-power stations by the River Hiitolanjoki at the southern part of the Fennoscandian Greenbelt.

The appreciation of Mayan roots by the border between Mexico, Guatemala and Belize could be taken as a reminder of the Karelian and Sámi histories of the Belt and its surroundings in Northern Europe.

To conclude, and to draw lessons from the Maya Forest conservation: The appreciation of Mayan roots by the border between Mexico, Guatemala and Belize could be taken as a reminder of the Karelian and Sámi histories of the Belt and its surroundings in Northern Europe. In fact, the post-imperial status of the boreal Greenbelt could be significantly solidified by enriching the future Belt-proposals by measures of ethno-ecological correction. Consequently, Greenbelt could become a prime means of corrective justice for the Indigenous and local communities (of humans and non-humans) strained by centuries of imperial displacement and extraction. The Greenbelt could accordingly be developed into a Peace Belt, if not a Sámi-Ugric Belt: paving the way from current geopolitical turbulences toward pluriversal planetary recoveries based on multiscale equity and rewilding.

References:
Laako, Hanna & Edith Kauffer (2022). Between colonizing waters and extracting forest fronts: Entangled ecofrontiers in the Usumacinta River Basin. Political Geography vol 69, 102566.

Lehtinen, Ari (2006). Postcolonialism, Multitude and the Politics of Nature. On the Changing Geographies of the European North. University of America Press, Lanham.

Lehtinen, Ari (2018). Rajalla, tilassa, liikkeessä. Suomen ja Venäjän Vihreän Vyöhykkeen kolme maantiedettä. Teoksessa: Ruukki, raja ja rahvas (toim. Ismo Björn, Antti Härkönen, Jenni Merovuo, Riikka Myllys & Arto Nevala), ss. 54–69. Pohjois-Karjalan Historiallinen Yhdistys, Joensuu.

Meriläinen, Eija & Ari Lehtinen (2022). Re-articulating forest politics through “rights to forest” and “rights of forest”. Geoforum 133, pp. 89-100.

Mustonen, Tero & Ari Lehtinen (2018). Dynamic, endemic, rewilded. Ecologist, 21 Nov.

ARI LEHTINEN
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Safeguarding ecosystem connectivity along and across borders

As shown by Laako et al., the Maya Forest is an area shared by three countries (Mexico, Guatemala and Belize) with their common history and rich, complex territorial dynamics. From an ecological viewpoint, it is important to recognize that this eco-region, as many others, is not restricted to international limits. The biological and ecological processes that sustain the ecosystems do not obey political borders and thus, require landscape connectivity between countries in order to carry on. The strategies implemented in each country to conserve their forest coverage and biodiversity that inhabits there, critically impact the mentioned connectivity. In this sense, I refer to the transboundary conservation aim mentioned by Laako et al. that is crucial here: Generating connectivity between protected areas along and across international borders.

The non-profit civil association Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos (NEM), founded in 2005, has focused its efforts in conserving protected areas within the Lacandon Rainforest (Selva Lacandona SL) and the remains of the forest pertaining to the communal lands (ejidos) adjoining these protected areas in the municipality of Marqués de Comillas (MdC) in Chiapas, Mexico. The Lacandon Rainforest is a strategically important for Mexico as the most biodiverse humid, tropical rainforest that is also critical for freshwater refill and many other ecosystem services. Together with the rainforests of Tabasco, Campeche and Quintana Roo, as well as the Department of Petén in Guatemala and Belize, it forms the greatest humid, tropical forest range in Mesoamerica, known as the Maya Forest (Selva Maya). The Lacandon rainforest is also the territory of the Lacandon Mayan Indigenous people.

Despite its cultural and environmental importance, the disorganized territorial occupation of the Lacandon rainforest during the past 70 years has provoked the loss of three-quarters of the forest coverage due to deforestation that paved the way for agriculture and livestock activities, and recently also agro-industrial farming, particularly the African palm oil plantations. The most important part of the natural ecosystems that remain conserved in the Lacandon Rainforest are located within its seven protected areas, from which the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve (RBMA) is the most important one for its extension (331 200 ha).

Nevertheless, the surrounding areas of the protected areas count for the highest rates of the country’s deforestation, leaving the biodiversity within the protected areas isolated. This is also the case of the surrounding territories in the south of the RBMA, where the communal lands of the MdC-municipality are located, established forty years ago by peasants originating from different parts of Mexico. The remaining forests in this area play an important role in the biodiversity conservation of the humid, tropical rainforest and in the ecological connectivity between the protected areas towards Central American rainforests.

The interventions by NEM are divided in four broad fields:
1) Biodiversity conservation by means of consolidating the protected areas and the evaluation of the
state of wildlife populations by means of participative monitoring;
2) The sustainable management of natural ecosystems in MdC by means of the development of productive
activities that generate employment and additional income for social welfare, and that simultaneously
diminish deforestation, such as eco-tourism;
3) The restoration of ecosystems and the recovery of highly endangered species; and
4) The strengthening of local capabilities and environmental awareness, both individual and collective.

NEM has created various collaborative agreements with many civil society organizations, academic institutions and the government

To efficiently implement these activities, NEM has created various collaborative agreements with many civil society organizations, academic institutions and the government. The latest include collaboration with the Commission of Protected Areas (CONANP), the Ministry of Environment and Natural History of Chiapas (SEMAHN), and the Biodiversity Commission (CONABIO) in Mexico.

One important alliance related to connectivity took place with the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, as described by Laako et al. This initiative had the objective of improving landscape and ecosystem connectivity, and to promote sustainable productive processes that improve the quality of lives of the local human populations that use, manage and conserve biological diversity. This alliance allowed promoting productive crop reconversion in MdC with positive results. Unfortunately, in 2018 the project was ended. It would be desirable that the Mexican government would recover these efforts such as the one mentioned here that privilege the attention to social and economic processes that cause deterioration, and that have a broad, territorial focus that succeed in the articulation of public policies and of different sectors, and that motivate the political and institutional coordination between countries to achieve a consolidated, effective environmental management at regional scale.

Independently of the efforts of transboundary conservation driven by the Mexican state, we consider indispensable the collaborative work between civil society organizations of the three countries that share the Maya Forest. Considering the above, in our fields of work related to conservation and recuperation of endangered species, NEM has generated international alliances focused on the protection of scarlet macaw (Ara macao) and the jaguar (Panthera onca). These alliances are of utmost importance because the countries, on the one hand, share the same species’ populations (scarlet macaw between Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, and the jaguar between Mexico and Guatemala), and on the other, they face similar threats that put at risk these species.

The Conservation Alliance for Scarlet Macaw of the Maya Forest, formed of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Guatemala, Friends for Conservation and Development (FDC) in Belize and NEM in Mexico, carry out activities to coordinate the conservation and recuperation of the species’ metapopulation. By now we have managed to create protocols for the management and rescue of young pigeons (illegally trafficked in the black market) and to implement artificial nests, in addition to the elaboration of a strategy to study the migratory movement of the scarlet macaw in the region of the three countries.

Furthermore, the jaguar monitoring carried out by NEM has achieved in several shared efforts, such as the creation of a national census of the jaguar. Moreover, we have an alliance with the civil organization Bioconciencia in a program “the jaguars of the Maya Forest” to conserve the jaguar populations and their habitat in the region long term. The collaboration with the given organizations has allowed sharing relevant information concerning the state of the species and their conservation in each place; exchanging experiences and developing common strategies for their protection. These projects have permitted to catalyze the improvement of transboundary and integral projects implemented by NEM, and to achieve broader scale effects in the employed strategies, in this case, in the Maya Forest.

It is critical that the governments promote shared environmental agendas

The examples of transboundary conservation efforts commented here, as well as those described by Laako et al., represent real progress in achieving ecosystem connectivity between countries. However, there are still many important challenges. It is critical that the governments promote shared environmental agendas that would have as central axis a broader, regional, territorial vision and that would truly prioritize in “safeguarding biodiversity along and across the borders” (Laako et al., 2022).

Salvaguardar la conectividad ecosistémica a lo largo y más allá de las fronteras

Como señala Laako et. al., la Selva Maya es un área compartida entre tres países (México, Guatemala y Belice) con una historia y dinámica territorial rica y compleja. Desde una perspectiva ecológica, resulta importante reconocer que esta eco-región, como todas, no está restringida a los límites internacionales. Los procesos biológicos y ecológicos que sustentan a los ecosistemas no acatan fronteras y requieren de la presencia de conectividad del paisaje, aún entre países, para poder llevarse a cabo. Las estrategias que implementa cada país para conservar la cobertura forestal y la biodiversidad que ahí habita, tienen un efecto crítico en lograr dicha conectividad. En este sentido, hago referencia a una de las metas de la conservación transfronteriza que plantean Laako et. al., que resulta crucial: generar conectividad entre las áreas protegidas a lo largo y a través de las fronteras internacionales.

Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos (NEM), asociación civil sin fines de lucro fundada en 2005, ha enfocado sus esfuerzos a la conservación de las áreas naturales protegidas (ANP) de la Selva Lacandona (SL) y de los remanentes de selva de los ejidos colindantes a ellas en municipio Marqués de Comillas (MdC), Chiapas, México. La SL es una región estratégica para México al ser la selva tropical húmeda más biodiversa del país, constituir una zona prioritaria de recarga de agua dulce y proveer muchos otros servicios ecosistémicos. En conjunto con las selvas de Tabasco, Campeche y Quintana Roo, y el Petén en Guatemala y Belice, forman el macizo forestal de bosque tropical húmedo de mayor tamaño en Mesoamérica, conocido como la Selva Maya. Además, la SL constituye el territorio del pueblo originario maya lacandón.

A pesar de su importancia ambiental y cultural, la desordenada ocupación territorial en la SL en los últimos 70 años provocó la pérdida de tres cuartas partes de la cobertura forestal a causa de la deforestación para el establecimiento de actividades agropecuarias de subsistencia y, recientemente, para cultivos agroindustriales, particularmente las plantaciones de palma africana. La mayor parte de los ecosistemas naturales que aún se mantienen conservados en la SL se encuentran dentro de siete ANP, siendo la Reserva de la Biosfera Montes Azules (RBMA) la más importante por su extensión (331,200 ha).

Sin embargo, las áreas circundantes a las ANP presentan de las más altas tasas de deforestación del país, dejando aislada la biodiversidad dentro de las ANP. Este es el caso de los territorios colindantes al sur con la RBMA, en donde se encuentran los ejidos del municipio MdC, fundados hace cuarenta años por campesinos provenientes de diferentes partes de México. Las selvas remanentes de esta área juegan un papel muy importante en la conservación de la biodiversidad de la selva tropical húmeda y en la conectividad ecológica entre las ANP y con las selvas centroamericanas.

Las intervenciones de NEM se dividen en cuatro grandes líneas de trabajo:
1) Conservación de la biodiversidad mediante la consolidación de las ANP y la evaluación del estado de poblaciones de vida silvestre por medio de monitoreo participativo;
2) Manejo sustentable de los ecosistemas naturales en MdC mediante el desarrollo de actividades productivas que generen empleos e ingresos adicionales para el bienestar social, y que, a su vez, disminuyen la deforestación como es el ecoturismo;
3) Restauración de ecosistemas y recuperación de especies en peligro de extinción;
4) Fortalecimiento de las capacidades locales, individuales y organizativas, y sensibilización ambiental.

NEM ha establecido a lo largo de su historia acuerdos de colaboración con diversas organizaciones de la sociedad civil, instituciones académicas y de gobierno

Para implementar de manera efectiva varias de sus acciones, NEM ha establecido a lo largo de su historia acuerdos de colaboración con diversas organizaciones de la sociedad civil, instituciones académicas y de gobierno. En el caso de las últimas, NEM colabora con la Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (Conanp), Secretaría de Medio Ambiente e Historia Natural del gobierno del Estado de Chiapas (Semahn) y la Comisión Nacional de Biodiversidad (Conabio), entre otras.

Una alianza muy relevante en cuanto a los aspectos de conectividad se llevó a cabo con el Corredor Biológico Mesoamericano, descrito por Laako et. al. Esta iniciativa tuvo como objetivo mejorar la conectividad del paisaje y los ecosistemas, y promover procesos productivos sustentables que mejoren la calidad de vida de las poblaciones humanas locales que usan, manejan y conservan la diversidad biológica. Dicha alianza permitió promover acciones de reconversión productiva en MdC con resultados positivos. Desafortunadamente, en 2018 el proyecto concluyó. Sería deseable que desde el gobierno mexicano se recuperen esfuerzos como éste, que privilegien la atención a procesos económicos y sociales que son factores de deterioro, que tienen un enfoque territorial amplio, que logren la articulación de políticas públicas y de los diversos sectores, y que impulsen la coordinación política e institucional entre los países para lograr una gestión ambiental consolidada y efectiva a escala regional.

Independientemente de los esfuerzos de conservación transfronteriza impulsados por el Estado mexicano, consideramos indispensable el trabajo colaborativo entre organizaciones de la sociedad civil de los tres países que comparten la Selva Maya. Considerando lo anterior, desde las líneas de trabajo para la conservación y recuperación de especies amenazadas, NEM ha generado alianzas internacionales enfocadas en la protección de la guacamaya roja (Ara macao) y el jaguar (Panthera onca). Estas alianzas resultan muy relevantes, ya que, por un lado, las poblaciones de ambas especies son compartidas entre países (la de guacamaya roja entre México, Guatemala y Belice, y la de jaguar entre México y Guatemala) y por otro, los tres países se enfrentan a las mismas amenazas que ponen en riesgo a dichas especies.

Por una parte, la Alianza por la Conservación de la Guacamaya Roja en la Selva Maya, conformada por Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) en Guatemala, Friends for Conservation and Developement (FCD) en Belice y NEM en México, ejecuta acciones coordinadas de conservación y recuperación de la metapoblación de la especie. Hasta el momento se han logrado estandarizar protocolos de manejo y rescate de pichones (que son traficados de manera ilegal en el mercado negro) y para la implementación de nidos artificiales; además de la elaboración de una estrategia para el estudio del movimiento migratorio de la especie a lo largo de los tres países.

Por otra parte, el monitoreo de jaguar que realiza NEM ha formado parte de esfuerzos conjuntos con otras organizaciones como, por ejemplo, el censo nacional del jaguar. Asimismo, se cuenta con una alianza con Bioconciencia A.C., con la cual se consolidó el programa Jaguares de la Selva Maya, que cuenta con un plan de acción para conservar las poblaciones de jaguar y su hábitat en la región a largo plazo. La colaboración entre dichas organizaciones ha permitido compartir información relevante de las especies en cuanto a su estado de conservación en cada sitio, intercambiar experiencias y desarrollar estrategias comunes de conservación. Con ellos se ha catalizado el mejoramiento de los proyectos de conservación transfronterizos e integrales como el que NEM implementa, logrando que el efecto de sus estrategias sean a una escala mayor, en este caso, la Selva Maya.

Resulta prioritario que desde los gobiernos se promueva una agenda ambiental compartida

Los ejemplos de esfuerzos de conservación transfronteriza aquí narrados, así como los descritos por Laako et al., representan un avance acertado para lograr la conectividad de los ecosistemas entre países. Sin embargo, aún quedan desafíos importantes que superar. Resulta prioritario que desde los gobiernos se promueva una agenda ambiental compartida que tenga como eje central una visión territorial regional y que realmente priorice “salvaguardar la biodiversidad a lo largo y más allá de las fronteras” (Laako et al., 2022).

ELISA CASTRO TOVAR
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