Elsevier

Applied Geography

Volume 20, Issue 1, January 2000, Pages 17-42
Applied Geography

Land use and deforestation in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0143-6228(99)00017-XGet rights and content

Abstract

Deforestation rates and land-use changes related to environmental factors (slope angle and soil type), in addition to some local population and economic attributes, were estimated from Landsat MSS satellite images of two municipalities of different sizes and for a greater portion of the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Annual deforestation rates for 1974–84 and 1984–90 were 1.58 and 2.13%, respectively, in the central highlands of Chiapas; 1.84 and 1.10% in the highly populated Huistán; and 0.46 and 3.42% in the relatively unpopulated Chanal. Changes in the proportion of habitat types differed between the two municipalities between 1974 and 1990 (p<0.001). Dense forests decreased irrespective of slope angle, while increases were observed in open forested habitats and developed areas. Soil properties also determined the locale and rate of deforestation. In addition to permanent deforestation, a highly dynamic pattern of land-use change was found, and a gradient of degradation of forest structure and floristic composition. These processes appeared to be related to land-use history, as well as to environmental and socioeconomic attributes in each municipality. The current situation in the study region suggests the maintenance and even increasing impact of these processes, complicating the development of solutions to the generalized trend of impoverishment and resource depletion. The results encourage caution in the interpretation, use and analysis of data on the causes and consequences of deforestation, which frequently may not take into consideration the many aspects and scales of this process within a given region.

Introduction

Old-growth tropical forests represent a number of values related to biodiversity conservation (Franklin & Forman, 1987; Crow, 1990; Kim & Weaver, 1994) and carbon sequestration (Cooper, 1982; Dobson, Jolly & Rubenskin, 1989; Bawa & Markham, 1995). Both local and global effects have been identified as possible consequences of tropical deforestation. On a local scale, in addition to declining species richness and genetic variation, deforestation may result in a disturbance of the hydrological balance and degradation of the physical and chemical attributes of the soils (Siebert, 1987; Gibson, Collins & Good, 1988; Saunders, Hobbs & Margules, 1991; Ojima, Gavin & Turner, 1994). Furthermore, significant sources of forest products for the primary needs of poor peasants in developing countries may be lost (Buschbacher, 1990). On the other hand, climatic patterns may be changing due to global warming related to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (Macdonald, 1994; Ojima et al., 1994; Bloomgarden, 1995).

Increasing awareness about the drastic and accelerated transformation of natural landscapes (particularly in tropical regions), and its effects on global climatic trends and biodiversity, led to the adoption of the International Convention on Biodiversity and Change of the Global Climate at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development at Rio of Janeiro (Kim & Weaver, 1994). A non-legally binding statement of principles was adopted for the management, conservation, and sustainable development of multiple-use forests (de Jong, Montoya-Gómez, Nelson, Soto-Pinto, Taylor & Tipper, 1994). Notwithstanding these measures, deforestation and degradation of the remaining forest stands in developing countries are still continuing, exacerbated by persistent policies and incentives which may enhance them (Leonard, 1989; Cairns, Dirzo & Zadroga, 1995; Clark, 1995). Development models based on market-driven economics and priorities set for public investment have proved to be unsympathetic towards traditional agriculture (Garcı́a-Barrios and Garcı́a-Barrios, 1990, Garcı́a-Barrios and Garcı́a-Barrios, 1992). These economic policies provide incentives for high-technology and/or export agriculture, but have frequently failed to encourage sustainable forestry alternatives (Clark, 1995; Goodland, 1995).

Detailed and updated resource inventories are needed to support land-use planning and sustainable management. Spatial analyses of land-use patterns using geographical information systems (GIS) have increased noticeably over the last decade. However, at least in tropical Latin America, detailed GIS studies describing the dynamics of vegetation cover changes are still lacking (but see Harrison, 1991; Dirzo & Garcı́a, 1992; SARH, 1992; Skole & Tucker, 1993; Sader, Sever, Smoot & Richards, 1994). It is generally agreed that extensive forested areas in the region are rapidly being converted to pasture and agricultural land (Fresco, 1994). It has been estimated that Latin American countries include 27% of the world's tropical forests (Browder, 1989) and that they have been disappearing over the last decade at a rate of 10 000 km2 yr−1, which represents a 50% increase for the period (Johnson & Cabarle, 1993). Within the region, Mexico has the highest deforestation rates (Sayer & Whitmore, 1991), estimated at 3650–15 000 km2 yr−1 during the 1980s and 6780–7460 km2 yr−1 in the early 1990s (SARH, 1992; Cairns et al., 1995).

The objective of this study is to provide an estimate of deforestation over the period 1974–90 in the highly populated and economically marginalized highlands of Chiapas in southern Mexico (Parra-Vázquez & Dı́az-Hernández, 1997). An attempt is made to relate deforestation rates and land-use patterns to environmental factors such as slope angle and soil type, in addition to some local population and economic attributes. The information used in this study refers to two municipalities within the same physiographic region that share general environmental conditions, but have striking differences in population density and forest-use history. We believe that the major issues related to deforestation and land-use patterns that are identified in the study area might be similar to those in other tropical highland areas of Mexico (Landa, Meave & Carabias, 1997), Central America and Andean regions, which may account for 25–30% of their respective territories (de Boer, 1989).

Section snippets

Study area

The state of Chiapas is located in southern Mexico, in the central part of Mesoamerica (Fig. 1). This region includes one of the richest biotas of Mexico and Central America (Rzedowski, 1978, Rzedowski, 1991; Breedlove, 1981, Breedlove, 1986; Martı́nez, Ramas & Chiang, 1994; González-Espinosa, Ochoa-Gaona, Ramı́rez-Marcial & Quintana-Ascencio, 1997). The highlands of Chiapas (Central Plateau sensu; Müllerried, 1957) comprise a limestone mass with extrusive volcanic rocks at the highest peaks,

Classification of satellite imagery

Six Landsat MSS (Multispectral Scanner Sensor, path 21) images (row 49: 15 February 1974, 15 January 1985 and 20 December 1990; and row 48: 15 February 1974, 25 November 1984 and 27 October 1992) were classified. An image subset of the central portion of the highlands of Chiapas was also obtained in order to compare deforestation processes at the municipal and regional scales (see Fig. 1). The central highlands of Chiapas portion extends over 336 798 ha, out of which 31 962 ha (9.5%) belong to

Vegetation cover and land-use changes

The distribution of the forested areas in 1974, 1984 and 1990 is shown in Fig. 2. Annual deforestation rates of 1.58, 1.84 and 0.46% were estimated for the 1974–84 period, and 2.13, 1.10 and 3.42% for the 1984–90 period, for the central Chiapas Highlands, Huistán and Chanal, respectively. In 1974, pine–oak forest and pine forest occupied approximately the same proportion of area in the central Chiapas highlands as in Chanal (42 and 37%; 31 and 29%), while pine–oak forest in Huistán was

Deforestation rates

Deforestation rates in Mexico during the second half of the 20th century are considered to be among the highest in the world (Sayer & Whitmore, 1991; Masera, Ordoñez & Diro, 1992; SARH, 1992; Cairns et al., 1995). For the whole country, Masera et al. (1992) estimated an overall annual deforestation rate of 1.56% during the mid-1980s; for temperate coniferous and temperate broad-leaved forests they reported rates of c. 0.95%. The present study found that (except for Chanal in 1974) deforestation

Concluding remarks

Forests in the study area could be transformed through three non-mutually exclusive processes: (1) increasing degradation in terms of both forest structure and floristic composition; (2) increasing deforested areas, and (3) increasing stand fragmentation and border effects. The dynamics of these processes were found to be different in the two municipalities studied, pointing towards the influence of their respective land-use history and environmental and socioeconomic traits. The current

Acknowledgements

We should like to thank J. Meave, V. Sorani, B. de Jong, A. Newton and N. Ramı́rez-Marcial for helpful comments on earlier versions. D. Miller, G. Wright and M.A. Castillo-Santiago were most helpful with the use of geographical information systems. P.F. Quintana-Ascencio provided advice on statistical analysis. I. March gave access to the facilities of the Laboratorio de Información Geográfica y Estadı́stica (ECOSUR). A. Flamenco, D. Méndez and J.C. Yáñez were most helpful with details of SIG.

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