Communities in Mexico Step Up to Protect a Forest Jonathan Levinson - Mongabay
go to original March 17, 2017

The Mexican portion of the Lacandon ecosystem comprises around 1.3 million hectares, mostly made up of rainforest. But human activity such as slash-and-burn farming and logging has greatly changed large portions of the landscape, with data from the University of Maryland indicating the Lacandon lost more than 11 percent of its tree cover between 2001 and 2014. (UofM)

On a Saturday afternoon in January, Julia Carabias, one of Mexico’s most respected biologists, was making herself useful – putting a fresh coat of blue paint on the walls of a still-unnamed new restaurant she hopes will open on time and on budget. She and the community of Adolfo López Mateos, in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, are counting on it drawing patrons from miles beyond. The chefs are plucked from the local community, and the location is a winner, tucked into the side of a mountain, with sweeping views of the Lacandon jungle below and, if you time it right, a striking sunset of reds and oranges.

This might seem an odd pursuit for Carabias, a soft-spoken yet formidable 62-year-old biologist and former environment minister. However, to those around her, it is not. A student who works with her said that she is to Mexico’s rainforest what Jane Goodall is to Africa’s chimpanzees. Her quest to open this restaurant and make it profitable is inextricably linked to her overarching goal: to save and reverse the rapid loss of flora and fauna in one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world.

“This restaurant represents 2,000 hectares that are being protected,” says Carabias. “All of the ejido [communal village] decided to preserve the forest.”

In 1992, 154 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In the quarter-century since, one certainty appears to have emerged, according to conservationists like Carabias: The international effort to curb climate change requires an army of biologists, conservationists, and local community leaders who not only are fiercely committed to preventing deforestation but also must be prepared to be social workers, economists, even painters and restaurateurs if the massive societal shifts needed to effect sustainable development are to stand a chance.

Establishing viable business alternatives that preserve forests is critical to sustainable development. According to Carabias, convincing and then helping local communities to make fundamental changes in their lives requires an immense on-the ground effort over the course of years. Neither goal has been realized in any significant way.

“I am completely convinced that what we need now is action,” Carabias told Mongabay. “We need to come to the basics, the grassroots, to try to implement all that we have thought about. And it’s not being implemented in the local regions.”

Read the rest at Mongabay

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