Andrew S. Mathews
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016520
- eISBN:
- 9780262298537
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016520.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
This book describes Mexico’s efforts over the past one hundred years to manage its forests through forestry science and biodiversity conservation. The author shows that transparent knowledge was ...
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This book describes Mexico’s efforts over the past one hundred years to manage its forests through forestry science and biodiversity conservation. The author shows that transparent knowledge was produced not by official declarations or scientists’ expertise but by encounters between the relatively weak forestry bureaucracy and the indigenous people who manage and own the pine forests. The author records the performances, collusions, complicities, and evasions that characterize the forestry bureaucracy. He shows that the authority of forestry officials is undermined by the tension between local realities and national policy; officials must juggle sweeping knowledge claims and mundane concealments, ambitious regulations, and routine rule-breaking. Moving from government offices in Mexico City to forests in the state of Oaxaca, the book describes how the science of forestry and bureaucratic practices came to Oaxaca in the 1930s and how environmental and political contexts set the stage for local resistance. The author describes how the indigenous Zapotec people learned the theory and practice of industrial forestry as employees and then put those skills to use when they became the owners and managers of the area’s pine forests, eventually incorporating forestry into their successful claims for autonomy from the state. Despite the apparently small scale and local contexts of this balancing act between the power of forestry regulations and the resistance of indigenous communities, the author shows that it has implications for how we understand the modern state, scientific knowledge, and power and for the global carbon markets for which Mexican forests might become valuable.Less
This book describes Mexico’s efforts over the past one hundred years to manage its forests through forestry science and biodiversity conservation. The author shows that transparent knowledge was produced not by official declarations or scientists’ expertise but by encounters between the relatively weak forestry bureaucracy and the indigenous people who manage and own the pine forests. The author records the performances, collusions, complicities, and evasions that characterize the forestry bureaucracy. He shows that the authority of forestry officials is undermined by the tension between local realities and national policy; officials must juggle sweeping knowledge claims and mundane concealments, ambitious regulations, and routine rule-breaking. Moving from government offices in Mexico City to forests in the state of Oaxaca, the book describes how the science of forestry and bureaucratic practices came to Oaxaca in the 1930s and how environmental and political contexts set the stage for local resistance. The author describes how the indigenous Zapotec people learned the theory and practice of industrial forestry as employees and then put those skills to use when they became the owners and managers of the area’s pine forests, eventually incorporating forestry into their successful claims for autonomy from the state. Despite the apparently small scale and local contexts of this balancing act between the power of forestry regulations and the resistance of indigenous communities, the author shows that it has implications for how we understand the modern state, scientific knowledge, and power and for the global carbon markets for which Mexican forests might become valuable.
