DDIG: Privatizing the Commons? Mexico's Forestry Ejidos 15 Years After Agrarian Counter Reform

研究生玛丽亚·L·迪吉亚诺将在玛丽安·施明克博士的指导下，研究土地保有权变化与森林砍伐之间的关系。其目标是密切审查国家政策变化、地方机构反应、个人对私有化和森林资源的态度以及对自然景观的影响之间的多尺度关系。随着各国政府将自然资源管理权下放给当地社区，以及决策者和捐助机构支持共同财产私有化，不断变化的财产制度对自然资源管理的影响值得注意。这些土地保有权的变化可能会潜在地威胁到森林保护，因为据估计，目前世界上25%的森林资源属于或以社区为基础进行管理。这位研究人员将在墨西哥进行她的研究，墨西哥80%的森林资源是集体拥有的。1992年，墨西哥1910年共同财产法的法律修改允许公有土地私有化，这是半个多世纪以来的第一次。这项研究将利用土地覆盖变化分析、统计分析和人种学，将土地保有权制度和森林覆盖的大范围变化与对权利和资源的态度和观念的细微变化联系起来。研究目的是审查：1)1992年改革后土地保有权结果的范围；2)土地保有权变化的驱动因素；3)土地保有权变化与森林覆盖变化之间的关系；4)墨西哥东南部56个埃吉多州居民对财产权和森林资源的态度和看法。这项研究将有助于发展社会科学理论，能够在多个尺度上连接人与自然环境之间的关系。通过详细研究墨西哥1992年土地改革对所有权制度和森林的影响，这项研究还将有助于阐明世界范围内自然资源管理权力下放的后果。这项研究还支持研究生的教育。

Graduate student Maria L. DiGiano, under the guidance of Dr. Marianne Schmink, will undertake research on the relationship between land tenure change and deforestation. The goal is to examine closely the multi-scalar relationships between national policy change, local institutional responses, individual attitudes towards privatization and forest resources, and impacts on the physical landscape. The impact of changing property regimes on natural resource management warrants attention as governments devolve authority of natural resource management to local communities and as policy makers and donor agencies support the privatization of common property. These land tenure changes could potentially threaten forest conservation because an estimated 25 percent of the world's forest resources currently belong to or are managed on a communal basis. The researcher will conduct her research in Mexico, where 80 percent of forest resources are held collectively. In 1992, legal changes in Mexico's 1910 common property laws permitted privatization of common lands (ejidos) for the first time in over half a century. The study will employ land cover change analyses, statistical analyses, and ethnography to link broad-scale changes in land tenure regimes and forest cover with fine-scale variations in attitudes and perceptions regarding rights and resources. The research objectives are to examine: 1) the range of land tenure outcomes following the 1992 reforms; 2) the drivers of land tenure change; 3) the correlation between land tenure change and changes in forest cover; and 4) attitudes and perceptions of property rights and forest resources among residents of 56 ejidos in southeastern Mexico. The research will help to develop social science theory that is able to connect relationships between humans and the natural environment across multiple scales. By examining in ethnographic detail the effects on ownership systems and forests of Mexico's 1992 agrarian counter-reform, this study also will help elucidate the consequences of devolution of natural resource management worldwide. The research also supports the education of a graduate student.