The Multiple Use of Tropical Forests by Indigenous Peoples in Mexico: a Case of Adaptive Management

By V. Toledo, Benjamín Ortiz-Espejel, L. Cortés, P. Moguel, M. Ordóñez. 2003

271 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The quest for an appropriate system of management for tropical ecosystems necessitates that ecologists consider the accumulated experiences of indigenous peoples in their long-term management of local resources, a subject of current ethnoecology. This paper provides data and empirical evidence of an indigenous multiple-use strategy (MUS) of tropical forest management existing in Mexico, that can be considered a case of adaptive management. This conclusion is based on the observation that some indigenous communities avoid common modernization routes toward specialized, unsustainable, and ecologically disruptive systems of production, and yet probably achieve the most successful tropical forest utilization design, in terms of biodiversity conservation, resilience, and sustainability. This analysis relies on an exhaustive review of the literature and the authors' field research. Apparently, this MUS represents an endogenous reaction of indigenous communities to the intensification of natural resource use, responding to technological, demographic, cultural, and economic changes in the contemporary world. This transforms traditional shifting cultivators into multiple-use strategists. Based on a case study, three main features (biodiversity, resilience, and permanence) considered relevant to achieving adaptive and sustainable management of tropical ecosystems are discussed.

Subfields: Ecology, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/313aa96a87800a6b0b755fe90d7b4b200e654d1e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. Fikret Berkes
2. T. Beebee

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

1. V. Reyes‐García
2. E. Gómez‐Baggethun
3. Fikret Berkes
4. Elinor Ostrom

In Global and Planetary Change

1. E. Gómez‐Baggethun
2. Fikret Berkes
3. T. Beebee
4. Elinor Ostrom
5. D. Armitage
6. R. Plummer

Citations in the corpus

• An introduction to molecular ecology (2004, background): “In maintaining landscape mosaics, tropical producers take advantage of forest restoration processes such that they derive benefits from the land conversion process itself and from the various fallow stages (Toledo et al. 2003).”
• Local Knowledge, Subsistence Harvests, and Social–Ecological Complexity in James Bay (2009, background): “Many indigenous practices involve rotation of harvesting effort in space and time, documented in domains as diverse as tropical agroforestry (Dove 1985; Toledo et al. 2003) and subsistence hunting and fishing among northern indigenous peoples (Scott 1986; Feit 1987).”
• From famine foods to delicatessen: Interpreting trends in the use of wild edible plants through cultural ecosystem services (2015, background): “, 2014), nutrition (Mavengahama et al., 2013; Toledo et al., 2003), and food security (Bharucha and Pretty, 2010; Nolan and Pieroni, 2014; Redzić, 2010; Vinceti et al.”
• Introduction to Ethnobiology (2016, background): “Ethnobiology has contributed information for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, as well as giving greater visibility to the knowledge and rights of socalled traditional or local peoples (see Toledo et al. 2003 ; Moller et al. 2004 ; Donovan and Puri 2004 ).”