| Limited access to new technology, skewed resource distribution, and few alternative economic opportunities mean that many subsistence agriculturalists must migrate to find suitable farming land in order to support their families. Yet as populations grow worldwide, the land available for them is quickly shrinking. As many protected areas appear to be the only vacant land, many farmers find themselves knowingly, or unknowingly, settling illegally within their boundaries.; Since its declaration in 1990, farmers have continued to settle within the boundaries of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a protected area that encompasses the largest contiguous lowland forest remaining in Central America---connecting protected areas in Mexico with those in Belize. But the forest within the Reserve is rapidly being reduced---primarily as a result of the activities of the communities in and around the Reserve, such as agricultural expansion. Natural resource managers in the Reserve have employed several strategies aimed at minimizing the impacts of the communities. One of the most popular strategies, in the Maya Biosphere Reserve and throughout the world, is to increase land security in the hopes that communities will use resources more sustainably---by planning for the future rather than maximizing short term gain. And while conservation and development organizations worldwide develop programs based on this idea, in reality, there is little empirical evidence to support it. This research aims to explore this assumption through the lives of the subsistence farmers, and protected area managers, in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. The central research question that I aim to answer is "How is increasing land security affecting farmers resource use behavior and economic decision-making in the Maya Biosphere Reserve?" This specific question is part of a larger research question that asks " How do conservation strategies in and around protected areas affect the local communities?" These two questions can in turn be viewed as part of the broader question of "Do the social constructs of the Biosphere Reserve, such as tenure regimes, boundaries and incentives, influence the way that people use resources?" This research provides an excellent opportunity to explore the manner in which communities interact with and are affected by the social constructs developed by natural resource managers. |
