Community owned forests

Ted. The Oaxaca Lending Library (oaxlibrary.org)  is a organization that serves the expat community in Oaxaca.  A few weeks ago, Judy and I attended a talk there by a retired professor named David whose topic was the community owned forests of Mexico. 

Most forests around the world are owned by governments, large corporations or individuals. However, 60% of the forests here are owned and managed by local communities which are typical indigenous peoples.

Over the years, we have learned a bit about forest management from Judy’s brother who is a tree farmer. Naturally, we were curious to learn how a community could do this. 

After the talk, we met up with David for lunch and he told us more about this fascinating concept. After chatting for a bit, David asked us if we’d like to actually visit a community owned forest and meet some of the people. Of course we said yes!

This week, we joined David, journalist Linda and her friend Jane on a two day excursion to Ixtlán de Juárez, a small town in the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, a mountainous region about 40 miles north of the city of Oaxaca. 

This is a Zapotec community and the folks here are fiercely proud of Benito Juárez, a poor local boy who grew up to become president of Mexico in 1858. We were told that until 2006, Juárez was the only indigenous person to have ever been elected president of a country.

Upon entering Ixtlán, the first thing we saw was a sign informing us that we were in an unusual part of the world.

Translated, it says:

“In this community there is no private property. The purchase and sale of communal land is prohibited.”

Several decades ago, the people in this area were scraping by as subsistence farmers so they were thrilled when the federal government gave them ownership of their forest along with infusions of capital and training. This has happened in about 60 other forests around Mexico and Ixtlán has become a great example of how it can work.

The locals enjoy several revenue streams from their precious resource. They harvest timber using sustainable methods that guarantee the forest will be even healthier in the future. In the photo below, the light patches on the mountainside are new growth forests that arises naturally after a harvest.

They operate their own sawmill.

Ted, David, Judy, Linda & Jane

They have their own furniture factory where 60% of the employees are women.

I thought this pine was gorgeous!

They have an ecotourism resort with cabins, zip lines, mountain biking and hikes.

Our cabaña (with a fireplace - which we used!)

They have even built a water bottling facility for their lovely spring water.

Many of their young people are getting college degrees and returning to the village to help manage these successful and growing businesses. And all the wealth stays in the community.

I’m not naive enough to think this is a utopia. David assured us that not every community owned forest is this successful. On our way to dinner that night though, we just happened to run into the principal of the local school. Seeing that we were visitors, Lucas greeted us and, like everyone else we met, he gushed for 20 minutes about how proud he was of his community. And that was a beautiful thing!

Lucas & Ted

Noema

Judy & Samuel