North America

The Social Construction of Deforestation in Mexico:
A case study of the 1998 fires in the Chimalapas Rain Forest
David Barkin and Miguel Angel García

Deforestation is a complex process, the product of the interaction of numerous socio-political and economic factors with the natural environment. In Mexico, a wide variety of issues are involved: land disputes, political struggles for control of local government or lucrative public works contracts, competition for permits for cutting timber, and discontent with arbitrary (and often unfair) administrative decisions about access to water or the means to implement decisions to protect certain areas. In the ultimate analysis, however, two fundamental problems are at the heart of the process of deforestation: 1) the profound inequality that characterizes Mexican society and the disadvantaged position of forestry communities in negotiations with local, state, and federal agencies as well as with the private sector that is the ultimate buyer of their resources; and 2) the deep seated disagreement about the importance of protecting the environment and assuring its integrity for future generations while providing a reasonable livelihood on the basis of the precepts of sustainable production.

As disagreements about the control of the forests and the appropriate management strategies intensify, the various groups attempt to protect their interests and preclude the advance of their adversaries. While the arena for this struggle is generally the forest itself, sometimes the "underdogs" are able to take advantage of a political opening to bring their case to a broader audience and gain some temporary advantage. Inevitably, however, the struggle returns to the forests, wreaking a devastating toll by accelerating even more the pace of deforestation. This year, the global process of climate change, itself a product of many of these same factors, but on a planetary scale, joined the conspiracy against the forests, increasing their vulnerability by altering weather patterns, leaving the trees especially exposed to damage from small fires that in other circumstances would have extinguished themselves or could have been easily controlled.

The unprecedented magnitude of the fires of 1998 was a highly visible and extremely vicious manifestation of the social and political struggles that are increasing in intensity as a result of the rapid advance of the process of neoliberal reform through international economic integration that is polarizing Mexican society. In this essay, we describe the unique dynamics of the socio-political process related to the fires and explore their implications in the largest remaining tropical rain forest in North America, the Chimalapas, and for the deforestation process in general. The Chimalapas region is important, not just for the large, intact area of tropical rain forest, but also because the unusual and diverse concentration of flora and fauna makes its still great biodiversity especially valuable; the fact that it is also home to several different ethnic groups who have accepted responsibility for its preservation as part of their struggle to protect and strengthen their own rich cultural and productive heritage adds to the region’s importance.

The Chimalapas Rain Forest

The Chimalapas rain forest is situated in the heart of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrow strip of land where the Gulf of Mexico most closely reaches the Pacific Ocean. Historically part of the southern state of Oaxaca, a small part of its territory is located in Chiapas, and now a source of conflict. Even before the natives paid 25,000 pesos in gold to purchase title to their own land in the XVII century (!), outsiders were drawn to the dense rain forest in search of what they imagined was a fount of unimaginable wealth. During the ensuing centuries, the extraordinary diversity of natural resources attracted a never ending flow of prospectors searching for and extracting forest products; in more recent decades, the vast unoccupied territory became an ideal site for land-clearing operations by ranchers anxious to expand their herds in the tropics. In spite of inhospitable conditions, it was also a target for colonization, both by the spontaneous settlement of people from the land-scarce communities in the highland areas of Chiapas and by programmed transfer of peasants and natives peoples from other parts of the country.

Institutional forces contrived a different vision for the Chimalapas rain forest. Development practitioners lamented the lack of infrastructure to harness the region’s vast hydraulic resources; beginning in the 1970s, they repeatedly drew up plans for an imposing interconnected system of dams to store water in the valleys and canyons for transport through a large tunnel to supply a petrochemical complex and irrigate the coastal plains (on the Pacific) for commercial cultivation. A related project, initiated in the mid-1980s, called for large investments in roads to facilitate the felling of the valuable tropical hardwoods for export. Finally, commercial and ranching interests to the south considered the largest remaining tropical rain forest in North America to be an unnecessary obstacle that must be overcome as part of their design on wealth and modernity; their plan to build a four-lane highway through the pristine jungle from their highland areas to central Mexico dates back almost one-quarter century.

Today, the Chimalapas comprises almost 600,000 hectares (has.) belonging to two indigenous communities; Santa María Chimalapa controls 460,000 has. and San Miguel Chimalapa 134,000. In addition to the county seats, numerous small settlements sprung up along the banks of rivers and in valleys in each community; 38 are formal "congregations," created with the approval of the local authorities, while another 34 are comprised of settlers. Many of the second group were formed as part of governmental colonization schemes while others were simply created by invaders; both types illegally appropriated communal lands and many are controlled by cattle interests backed by political groups actively trying to undermine the effectiveness of the indigenous governance institutions. About 18,000 people now live in the region, 3,000 in the two larger towns, 9,000 dispersed in the "recognized" settlements. One-fifth of the area has been cleared for cultivation and pasture.

Crisis, conflict, and conciliation

For years the region has been the scene of conflicts stemming from struggles for control of the land. Outbreaks of violence became increasingly common, with ethnic differences frequently being used as a pretext for provocation; at present, only about one-third of the population is of Zoque origin, the result of a decision to invite settlers from other native groups and mestizo populations to confront these differences and negotiate agreements to coexist peacefully. Controlling violence at present is more difficult, because its roots are firmly entrenched in ambitious industrialization and infrastructure program designed to transform the region into growth pole for international firms. Exacerbating the tense situation, in 1995, the state of Chiapas unilaterally redrew its boundaries extending its territory to encompass not just the 12,000 has. that had been mutually recognized, but also an additional 148,000 has. of a disputed claim it had been making since 1950 (state authorities in Oaxaca have not formally responded to this action).

A 1987 meeting of concerned professionals proved to be decisive in formulating a long-term strategy for protection and welfare. The unanticipated participation of communal authorities contributed to building a broad coalition that would redesign the well-intentioned efforts to transform the Zoque homeland into a biosphere reserve that would have effectively remove them from the zone. The meeting had been convened in response to a concern about the consequences of decades of lumbering, colonization, expansion of the agricultural frontier, and ranching activities in southern Mexico; the tropical rain forests had been disappearing at an alarming rate. As the biologists and environmentalists met with a local NGO, Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste (Maderas), and community representatives over the next four years, they accepted an important modification in their original program. Instead of proposing a biosphere reserve to protect the largest remaining rain forest in North America, with its dense concentration of biodiversity hardly equaled anywhere in the word, including Amazonia, they developed an alternative jointly with the communities. The need for some action was all the more urgent because previous efforts to protect a similar ecosystem in the Lacandon jungle, further to the south, had been to no avail, with destruction proceeding apace in spite of a decree protecting the area. As they explored their options, they became increasingly alarmed about the advance in plans to implement the three proposed development projects mentioned above; formal negotiations were beginning with international financial agencies.

Interestingly, the decision to collaborate with the communal authorities was a landmark in environmental conflict resolution. The critical stance of the native peoples and their insistence on participating in the design and implementation of the proposed management and protection plan was crucial in the formulation of the final proposal. What emerged was an innovative proposal to create a "Peasant Reserve of the Biosphere" that would serve as the central demand for years to come and the organizing theme of the NGO, Maderas, that assumed responsibility for coordinating activities of many outside groups in the region with the communities.

International foundation support and public funds began to flow to implement programs a broad diversity of efforts in conservation, production, and evaluation. Basic infrastructure to improve living conditions for the local population was initiated, while small enterprises were begun to permit a better use of the resources that were being extracted and offer more opportunities in the communities. Studies were commissioned to begin to explore and describe this natural storehouse of biodiversity. With outside collaboration, the Zoques started a program to teach the young in their own language and promote the native culture, strengthening local institutions and authorities. These activities were fraught with conflict, as communal groups, government agencies, foundations, NGOs and "independent experts" each sought to implement their own agendas. In order to establish some order in the process and develop effective lines of authority and communication, an umbrella group, the National Committee for the Defense of the Chimalapas was formed in 1992, with high level assistance from scientific and governmental circles. This initiative was reinforced by the presidential announcement to create "peasant ecological reserves" in southern Mexico.

The process accelerated in the following year, as various public figures supported the innovative efforts to create a workable management plan. Commitments were made to reinforce the local initiatives and promote negotiations to resolve persistent land tenure conflicts and outstanding political disagreements. As a measure of the good will of the moment, the federal government agreed to reroute the proposed road from Chiapas to circumvent the proposed peasant reserve, in spite of the fact that it would be considerably more expensive to build and require a substantially longer journey. The collaboration between the communities and the outside authorities created a new dynamism that contributed to the consolidation of communal decision making structures and leadership capacity, and the implementation of an exemplary long-term resource management program. Maderas has matured as an effective NGO, reconciling communal aspirations with the availability of resources from outside agencies and constructively assisting in the gestation of local management capabilities.

Unfortunately, in spite of these advances, external political interests are taking advantage of long-standing agrarian (land tenure) disputes, and creating new ones to provoke increasing violence. The unilateral decision by the State government of neighboring Chiapas to change state boundaries reflects not simply a struggle over land, but over the development model for the region as a whole. Further still: until 1992, Oaxaca state authorities allowed the local governance process to advance and mature, while not blocking the international programs to promote a sustainable management program that favors native institutions and culture. In contrast, with the arrival of a new administration to state government in Oaxaca, an undeclared and continuing attack against the communities escalated during its six-year period and was joined by an open attack on Maderas that included fruitless attempts to cut off its support by direct appeals to the funding agencies. This opposition was motivated by a justified concern that grass-roots participation and community control of the valuable resource base would exclude the most powerful industrial groups from continuing to exploit the region’s wealth.

Similarly, influential economic groups interests from Chiapas continue to aggressively promote a centralized model of economic change based on the thorough-going reorganization of the local resource base to press the production of internationally traded commodities, with especial interest on the extraction of hardwoods, cattle grazing and irrigated export agriculture. The profound divergence in the underlying conceptions role of the market and the appropriate place of people in the governance and management structure has taken a particularly violent turn in recent years in Chimalapas, reflecting a similar hardening of positions in the negotiations with regard to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. As we shall see, these structural features played a tragic part in the forest fires of mid-1998, further accelerating deforestation in the region.

Mexico’s forests and the 1998 fire season: A national perspective

Two-thirds of Mexico’s land mass is or can be forested, with a wide variety of species, depending of the ecosystem. As a result, Mexico occupies eleventh place in volume of forest resources among the world’s nations, and fourth place, behind Indonesia, Colombia, and Brazil with regard to the biodiversity of flora and fauna. Referring specifically to the varieties of pine and oak, Mexico is in first place.

This enormous wealth was seriously eroded during decades of excessive exploitation as a result of inadequate development and management policies. Economic policies systematically discriminated against the rural population, placing an even greater burden on indigenous groups than on peasant communities; these policies often forced people to migrate into the country’s most inhospitable and fragile ecosystems and to engage in predatory productive and management practices that contributed to environmental destruction. On the other hand, agrarian policies fostered short-term monopoly control over vast regions of the nation’s forests by logging companies; early commercial strategies created protected markets for wood products and the more recent changes that eliminated these fetters further intensified exploitation of the nation’s timber stock. When combined with the attractive incentives to expand cattle ranching, especially in the tropical rain forests of southern Mexico, we are faced with a unique imprint of a pattern of deforestation that became well-known world wide: the dramatic contrast in the satellite photos of the forest on the each side of the border separating the country from Guatemala offers stark testimony to the rapacious character of forest management in Mexico. Although this destruction proceeded apace, the tropical jungles have suffered most, declining from some 20 million has. to just 2 million during the XX century.

Forest fires are a persistent and destructive force causing the deterioration of the natural ecosystems. Because of the unusual combination of climatic and meteorological conditions prior to and during the winter of 1997-1998, attributed to global climate change, in general, and El Niño, these fires had a particularly strong impact on Mexico’s forests and jungles. Their dramatic effect was clearly perceptible to ordinary citizens throughout the country and inexplicably down played by various groups within the federal and state governments, including, most surprisingly, the environmental authorities themselves (SEMARNAP).

By placing the Mexican situation in a broader perspective, and pointing out that damage to the forests from fire in Mexico was less significant than in other countries, including the United States, the ministerial declarations attempted to minimize its own responsibility for the problem and the eventual solution. This attempt was undoubtedly shaped by the economic policy-makers who assigned low priorities to environment management programs as macroeconomic pressures intensified, forcing reallocation and cutbacks of expenditures; fire-fighting and prevention, never a high priority, were specifically targeted in these cutbacks and replaced with pious declarations of concern. With the onset of Spring, these same politicians recognized the gravity of the situation, but only acted slowly to call for outside assistance to confront the emergency only after 19 peasant fire fighters were killed in Puebla and the damage began to cause serious problems beyond the nation’s frontiers. Surprisingly, once the worst was over, the preliminary damage figures released by the SEMARNAP, as we shall see, seriously understated the gravity of experience. Following the overdue onset of the rains in early July, they released figures reporting that 14,210 fires had broken out from the beginning of the year to mid-July, affecting 584,000 has., of which only 27% (157,000 has.) consisted of mature forests. The same official source put the damage in Oaxaca at 47,500 has. and another 129,000 in Chiapas, about 30% of the 1998 total.

The National Technical Consultative Committee on Forests, a group that includes representatives of all concerned interests, had no alternative but to accept the official figures, while pointing out the gravity of the situation: the number of fires was double the average for the period 1992-1997 and 35% above the historical high of 1988; the affected area was three times as great as the average for the same period. Their press release also went on to minimize the relative significance of this information: "without underestimating he damage," the burned area was only 0.41% of the total forested area in the nation. As suggested below, these figures were unbelievably low.

In the height of the 1998 forest fire season, public declarations at the highest political levels of government were quite forthright in assigning blame for this tragedy. They identified the irresponsible as belonging to some of the poorest segments of the rural population who engage in the slash-and-burn agriculture in the southern jungles and to peasant communities in other parts of the country who regularly use fire as a prophylactic measure to rid their fields of stubble prior to the new planting season. There was never any recognition of the difference between subsistence farmers and the cattlemen who both used slash and burn techniques, but on vastly different scales; while the former opened a small area for their own use, the latter cleared large extensions to extend their pastures and thereby increase their herds. Thus, the peasants were transformed into scapegoats and became the targets of an intense publicity campaign to attempt to turn the general public against the traditional farmers. There was no discussion of the reasons why farmers resorted to these practices or to a search for alternatives in the context of an overall economic policy context that discourages peasants in areas of rain-fed farming from planting their traditional crops without providing them with the financial resources, modern inputs, or technical assistance that would be needed for them to shift to other crops. Just two months later the agricultural authorities "discovered" an imminent food crisis, as the country found itself once again forced to import more than one-half of its basic food needs.

Our experience during the 1998 season suggests that the quantitative estimates of damaged area are, at best, misleading. The figure of 47,500 has. for Oaxaca is absolutely unbelievable. In the Chimalapas region, for example, Maderas estimated that 210,000 has. had been affected. It was actively involved in fire-fighting activities throughout the season, both directly and in collaboration with the Mexican army and the US forest service experts who were brought in to assist in the effort. Since the end of the conflagrations, it has worked jointly with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Sociedad para el Estudio de los Recursos Bióticos de Oaxaca (SERBO), members of the local communities responsible for the fire brigades, and the state offices of the SEMARNAP; using the GIS system developed over the past several years for resource management and investment programming, the polygons defined the damaged area in the proposed reserve! (This part of the state of Oaxaca, then experienced damage some five times greater than that reported for the whole state and would account for 35% of the figure reported for the nation as a whole.)

This substantial discrepancy between the official reports and the reality is as troubling as it is mystifying. We can find no sensible explanation for these minimal estimates and yet it seems evident that in the nation as a whole more than a million hectares were damaged, with a significant proportion suffering from serious damage as a result of underground fires and those that propagate at the level of the forest ceiling rather than burning at ground level; these are the two most damaging and dangerous types of fires.

Towards a more complete understanding of forest fires

Why are forest fires becoming increasingly damaging and harder to control in Mexico? Are the cultural practices of Mexico’s poorest farmers really the root cause of the problem? Should fire prevention policy assign a first priority to blaming these small-scale farmers? These questions are fundamental for an understanding of the role of fire in the dynamics of deforestation in Mexico. Before proceeding with our detailed analysis of the experience in the Chimalapas, it seems worthwhile exploring these questions on a national level.

The frivolous diagnosis of the forest fires offered by the public sector is as dangerous as it is misleading. To identify the final manifestation of the process of rural impoverishment, as the root cause of the fires, can only serve to misinform public policy. It will not be possible to extirpate the problem by prohibiting slash-and-burn agriculture or burning as a means of cleaning fields. Regardless of whether these measures might be desirable, and whether they could be enforced, their promulgation would only increase the bias in public policy against the very poorest. In practical terms, it is also important to evaluate the charge that these people are guilty of causing the fires: the small-scale peasant worker, clearing a single hectare or two of secondary growth is likely to attempt to closely control his fire, because the consequence of its extending out of control are disastrous for that very individual (e.g., drying up of underground springs and reduced flow of water, fewer wildlife as they have less cover, increased scarcity of firewood); the poor family is most directly and seriously affected when these controlled burns grow. For decades, if not longer, these people have been quite responsible in "herding" their fires in such a way as to make them self-limiting. In a few cases, the dryness of the undergrowth changed conditions dramatically, exposing the forests to unanticipated dangers for which the peasants were unprepared.

On the other hand, the private rancher in the southeast clears and burns an average of 50 has. per year, including the higher reaches of the mountains where few planters attempt to go. Clearing for livestock grazing is important, not only because it serves the needs of the herd, but because it is a way to stake out or strengthen a claim for the land, a claim that frequently is the cause of conflict with others who attempt to assert their prior right to the same parcels; the ranchers have little concern for controlling the fires and may, in fact, be reluctant to commit themselves to the greater expenditures than a more responsible pattern of land clearing might entail. Should their fires get out of control, they can attempt to exercise their economic and political power to appropriate the affected areas, or hold them in reserve for future expansion of their herds.

Of even greater import, however, in the matter of forest fires, is the unsettled land tenure situation in Mexico. In our preparatory search for explanatory material to inform an analysis of forest fires, it seemed significant that many of the most serious, were in areas where conflicts over land and cultural values, or political struggles against local figureheads or the arbitrary exercise of many forms of power are common complaints. A different, but associated phenomenon, is the steady growth and expansion of drug production and trafficking in rural Mexico. The drug lords’ interest in provoking fires might be related to the desire to extend the cultivation of opium or marijuana, as well as to clear fields for clandestine landing strips; the unusually high incidence of large fires in isolated areas this year might be the unintended result of poorly controlled clearing operations in adverse conditions of extreme drought, like those of 1998.

Finally, for some of the very poorest in the forest communities, the fires might have a perverse effect of liberating them from the tyranny of the new forestry law and of economic integration. Very small-sized owners of timber resources, without resources or access to technical assistance, without credit, unable to compete in open local or global markets, might even consider their forest holdings as a limit on improving their well being. By clearing the land, they might be able to engage in subsistence farming or small-scale commercial cultivation, in spite of their very scarce resources.

In conclusion, this review suggests that in Mexico a great deal more was burned than we are being told and that the principal structural causes for the fires are not those being singled out in the official discourse. The CONAF declaration, cited above in note 5, indirectly confirms our skepticism about identifying the culprits as the poorest farmers or wood cutters, noting that 84% of the forest area affected by the fires was in areas where there was no forest industry, and in large measure was not subject to a forest management, conservation or restoration program; the remaining 16% was in areas of low levels of exploitation. If we are to be able to reverse the destructive pattern of using fire as a vicious and veiled weapon to attack the weakest social groups in the forest it is urgent to examine the motives and actions of other groups involved in local conflicts as part of the explanation for the underlying causes of the fires and of deforestation.

Fire in Chimalapas

This year’s fires in the Chimalapas affected more than one-third of this well-conserved tropical rain forest. Contrary to governmental affirmations and those of the CONAF, the fires in this region were in a locally managed area, where most of the native people participate in the conservation efforts under a program of protection, openly defying the local bosses who are tied to the national political organizations. Maderas assumed responsibility for working with the local population to promote the forestry programs as part of a broader program to shape a development model consistent with communal goals to conserve their collective heritage along with the biosphere.

There is a long history of communally organized fire prevention and control efforts. In 1995, however, Maderas, in collaboration with the communal authorities, engaged in a planning exercise to identify those regions that are most susceptible to the threat of fire. They were not surprised to discover an important coincidence of these regions with three important factors:

Agrarian conflict and the expansion of cattle grazing;

Expansion of the livestock frontier by wealthier commoners; and

The accelerated growth of drug trafficking, in zones that have been clearly identified to federal authorities by communal authorities.

The diagnosis also examined the conditions that would be needed to propagate fires. They made their decision on the basis of their limited ability to control the fires, the existing social conditions, and the fact that the high indices of humidity in the areas of rain forest and cloud forest (where it normally rains 11 months of the year) make it difficult to sustain the fires. As a result, they decided to concentrate their activities in the eastern region, where the largest areas of temperate forest are located and where conflicts over land tenure and the limits between the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas continue. Their analysis suggested that this was the set of factors that was causing a higher number of forest fires in this region than in others.

A specialized fire fighting communal brigade was trained and equipped to patrol this area. Other community members in the region were also trained. The approach worked well during 1996 and 1997, based on individual initiatives to report sightings of fires and establish a line of communication to mobilize the needed resources. The great limitation of this method, was that by the time smoke was detected, the fire was already bigger than it need be; but resources were not available to finance the construction of watch towers, to purchase the necessary equipment, and to pay salaries for the forest rangers; the communities were told that the Treasury Department would not authorize these types of expenditures! Maderas stepped in, raising money in 1998 from its international sources to purchase some of the equipment, but could not obtain resources for the towers (US$8,000 each) and rangers themselves. By the time the equipment arrived, 12,000 has. of newly planted pine trees and pastures had burned and several fires had broken out in the heart of the jungle that would prove to be uncontrollable.

The disaster began in earnest in early May, when a new front of fires appeared. A strange complex of seventeen different sites along a single latitude, running about 100 kms from east to west, started burning in the heart of the upper rain forest and cloud forest. Totally inaccessible, without any villages or any productive agriculture or ranching, the fires in these humid areas within the jungle were the most puzzling; in the communities; with more than 1,000 of their members on the front lines, they raised questions about the peculiar character of this situation, considering the seemingly self-perpetuating and sequential character of the incidents. The speculation that they may have been provoked to clear the way for building landing sites for counterinsurgency forces was fueled by the arrival of special troops from the "war zone" in Chiapas, not assigned to fire fighting chores. Local peasant firefighters were joined by professionals from the US and Mexican army troops. The local peasants noted a special "finger print" of these fires and raised the possibility some may have been deliberately set with an incendiary device.

As the gravity of the situation became apparent outside aid was requested. US Forest Service personnel joined the battle with specialized equipment and increasing numbers of Mexican soldiers, but were unable to control several of the spots until the rains came a month later. While much of this aid was provided by the US Agency for International Development, three "air cranes" for transporting water to the heart of the forest had to be hired from private contractors (2 were assigned to Chimalapas and the third to the neighboring reserve of El Ocote); charging $5,000 an hour, they were employed for 25 days at a total cost of about $3,000,000. Without the air support, damage from the fires would have been much greater.

The fires increased in intensity and smoke traveled as far as Texas and Florida, creating health emergencies throughout the southeastern part of the US. Local fires in that country further compounded the problem. Bureaucratic red tape slowed the process of bringing the modern equipment into the fray, but eventually an impressive array of materiel reinforced the one thousand commoners and an equal number of soldiers on the front lines of battle. Several dozen experts from the United States joined three specialized brigades from SEMARNAP.

By the time it was all over, 68 forest fires had broken out during 45 days. Of the 17 in the heart of the rain forest, six were never controlled. On June 20, 1998 tropical storms finally put out all remaining hot spots. By that time, 212,000 has., 35% of the total area, were damaged (the state governor inexplicably chose to minimize the problem, citing 25,000 as his estimate of the damaged area, "of which only one third was forested"). 126,000 has. were high montane and cloud forest areas; 18,000 has. of virgin cloud forests were completely burned out.

The nature of fire

Although the communities assumed responsibility for some of the fires, resulting from the carelessness of some of their members, and others have been related directly to ranching activities, the scale of experience cannot be explained by these incidents. It is particularly significant that some of the largest and most intractable of the incidents remain unexplained.

In this context, then, our search for causes and motives led us to examine the region’s history and identify the potential beneficiaries of the fires. In a disturbing exercise of superposing a map of the ambitious public works projects of a previous era on top of a map of the location of the fires, we discovered a troubling coincidence between two major but very different projects: the dams proposed in the early 1980s and the direct highway route planned in the early 1990s (see Maps 1-3). In discussions in the communities, we discovered that the official local candidate for Congress had been a long time advocate of the dam project, with its accompanying tunnel to channel water from the highland rain forest to the coastal plain. Similarly, the gubernatorial candidate (now elected) in Oaxaca is a staunch supporter of the major development program for the Isthmus, while powerful groups in Chiapas were renewing their pleas to abandon the lengthy detour agreed to in 1992, and a return to the original route that crosses the rain forest and which was severely damaged by the conflagrations (all work on the road was suspended in 1996, as these pleas were considered at the highest levels of government).

In the final analysis, the fires of 1998 are a reflection of the complex set of social and economic conflicts that are tearing apart the very fabric of Mexican society. Some were a direct result of lack of care and irresponsibility by poor peasants and natives, attempting to eke out their subsistence in unfavorable conditions; others were the product of greedy ranchers, attempting to expand their control of resources and their wealth. But the most serious incidents can best be explained as the product of a profound unresolved conflict around fundamental issues of social justice, environmental values and the model of development. Unable to use direct force to attack native groups in poor communities who have successfully allied with poor peasants or force them both from the region, wealthy and ambitious industrial and financial interests appear to be using every means at their disposal to circumvent the political agreements of a previous epoch and the still fragile environmental and social conscience of the present period. There are no scruples in this war without bounds. But there are high costs and real victims.

Conclusions and policy implications

This analysis of the forest fires in Chimalapas during the first half of 1998 obliges us to reexamine the process of deforestation in Mexico. It is not accurate or useful to glibly assign blame for this terrible tragedy to the nation’s poorest. By diverting attention from the underlying causes of deforestation, the government is not only attempting to thwart any discussion of the profound social and philosophic problems caused by its continuing attempts to accelerate the pace of international economic integration. The ambitious infrastructure and productive investment programs proposed for the strategic region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Chimalapas clearly pose the question of what kind of development for whom. This is a topic that has become virtually taboo in official circles, where people with honest questions have been unceremoniously dismissed. These efforts to suppress debate and impose an iron hand in implementing economic policies that threaten the well-being of local groups is provoking strong opposition and many forms of conflict throughout the country. In response some of the powerful people and groups who feel aggrieved by the government’s inability to impose single-handedly their projects are taking matters into their own hands, as their predecessors had been doing for generations. In Chimalapas in 1998, the results were tragic.

The gravity of the situation is evident as is the promise embodied in an unusual agreement that recognizes the capabilities of the communities. As it planned its restoration efforts, after the fires of 1998, the Mexican presidency explicitly accepted this potential in the communities of Chimalapas, excluding the region from the list of 85 areas of "ecological restoration" in which the federal government would implement its programs without any process of consultation with the people who were directly affected. Instead, the executive agreed to sign a written agreement that establishes mutual rights and obligations in a "Communal Technical Commission" that would examine the problem on a detailed parcel level and determine the specific techniques for restoration in each area. By recognizing the legitimacy and authority of the communal leaders, the agreement may be important advance in accepting the management model for the jungle that will curb deforestation by protecting the forests from further exploitation by outside interests and slow the region’s integration into the process of globalization, allowing the communities to implement an alternative strategy.

If Mexico is to learn from this experience and avoid its repetition in the future, it will not be enough to improve fire-fighting and prevention capacity or to recognize the communities and invite them to the conference table and planning meetings. It is also essential to reach some consensus that would allow the groups in conflict to reach mutually satisfactory solutions of some of the most contentions issues of our day: land tenure, popular participation in the design and implementation of resource management plans, effective land use plans and, most importantly, the design of the basic development model itself. The mere enunciation of this imposing agenda, makes it evident that deforestation and the forest fires are likely to continue to be our fellow travelers for many years to come. It is also clear that if we share a common goal of protecting the forests and the ecosystems of which they are a part, much more serious attention must be devoted to strengthening the capabilities and resolve of the local communities committed to defending these resources as part of their effort to survive as individuals and as groups.

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