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

研究生Maria L. DiGiano将在Marianne Schmink博士的指导下进行土地权属变化与森林砍伐之间关系的研究。目的是仔细审查国家政策变化、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重关系。随着各国政府将自然资源管理权移交给地方社区以及决策者和捐助机构支持共同财产私有化，变化中的财产制度对自然资源管理的影响值得注意。这些土地权属的变化可能会威胁到森林保护，因为目前世界上大约25%的森林资源属于或在公共基础上管理。这名研究人员将在墨西哥进行研究，那里80%的森林资源是集体拥有的。1992年，墨西哥修改了1910年的共同财产法，半个多世纪以来首次允许公有土地私有化。这项研究将采用土地覆盖变化分析、统计分析和民族志，将土地保有制度和森林覆盖的大范围变化与对权利和资源的态度和看法的小范围变化联系起来。研究的目的是考察：(1)1992年改革后土地所有制成果的变化范围；2)土地权属变化的驱动因素；3)土地权属变化与森林覆盖变化的相关性；4)墨西哥东南部56个ejidos居民对产权和森林资源的态度和认知。该研究将有助于发展能够跨多个尺度连接人类与自然环境之间关系的社会科学理论。本研究还将从人种学的角度详细考察墨西哥1992年土地反改革对所有权制度和森林的影响，从而有助于阐明世界范围内自然资源管理权力下放的后果。这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

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.