Environment on the Yucat´an Peninsula
4.2 Process of Change Affecting the Traditional Maya Population
The effects of modernization have left the Maya in an impoverished state, both cul-turally and economically. Levels of poverty on the peninsula are generally higher than the national average, and they are much higher in the traditional Maya areas than in other areas of the peninsula. Thus, extreme poverty was estimated to be 41%
for the entire peninsula in 1990, but as high as 80% in the traditional swidden zone and 60% in the former henequen area (both of which have large Maya populations), and only 13% in the urban tourist areas around Canc´un. “Alternative technologies”
and systems of “sustainable development” are currently being researched, tested in pilot projects, and introduced by government planners, nongovernmental orga-nizations, universities, research centers, and religious groups. However, most of these efforts have not been based on careful examination of the local ecological knowledge remembered by Maya elders (Faust, 1998; Freidel et al., 1993).
As elsewhere in Mexico, both fertility rates and natural population growth (due to the difference between fertility and mortality) have been declining recently on the Yucat´an peninsula. Thus the peninsula’s total fertility rate (total number of births per woman, based on current age-specific fertility rates) fell from 4.3 to 3.8 between 1980 and 1990, which led to a decline in natural population growth from 3.0% to 2.3% per year. Factors influencing these changes are the perceived need to educate children, the availability of contraceptive technology, and an effective government campaign promoting family planning (Elmendorf, 1980). However, the rates of fertility and natural population growth are still higher on the peninsula than in the country as a whole. Unfortunately, campaigns promoting bottle-feeding have contributed to slowing the declines in both fertility and natural population growth, since this supplementation allows for resumption of ovulation otherwise generally suppressed by lactation (Howrigan, 1988).
Contemporary population growth on the Yucat´an peninsula is the result not only of the natural population growth of the majority Maya population already residing in the region, but also of a few small government programs begun in the 1970s that have brought colonists from other parts of the country, including Guatemalan refugees from Chiapas. There is also spontaneous migration from other parts of Mexico as well as significant internal migration between the states of the peninsula.
Between 1985 and 1990, Quintana Roo received a total of 93,000 migrants, nearly half (45%) from Yucat´an and Campeche. Yucat´an had a small net population loss due to migration, while Campeche and Quintana Roo had positive net migration balances that increased their populations by 2.5% and 18%, respectively. In the 1990 census it was found that Quintana Roo migrants (born elsewhere in Mexico) accounted for over half (52%) of its enumerated population, mainly associated with the Canc´un tourist boom (figures from Garc´ıa et al., 1996, Section 2, Table 9).
Dense rural populations on the peninsula are concentrated in the state of Yucat´an, including the former henequen-producing region (39 persons/km2); the fruit-producing region (17 persons/km2); the maize-producing region, which traditionally supplied M´erida and other cities with much of their maize (14 persons/km2); and the cattle-producing region, which includes a coastal area where fishing and salt making are combined with agriculture (13 persons/km2). In all other rural areas of the peninsula, population density is below 8 persons/km2(1995 figures). Note that this excludes the tourist–urban region, the metropolitan region of M´erida, and the cities of Campeche and Ciudad del Carmen (figures from Garc´ıa et al., 1996, Section 2, Table 3).
Thus, modest population pressures in rural areas currently are associated with zones where commercial agriculture exists or existed in the recent past. These areas of commercial development have been heavily subsidized by government programs; in other areas population densities remain low. In subsidized areas, population has become more concentrated and introduced commercial production activities have had negative effects on environmental health as a result of soil and water contamination by chemical inputs; destruction of biodiversity as natu-ral predators succumb to biopoisons; clearing of tropical forests for cattle pasture, citrus orchards, cotton plantations, and fields for sugarcane and other monocrops;
and reduction of game animals due to both overhunting and loss of habitat.
One response to the reduction of game has been migration to the coast, encour-aged by government construction of artificial harbors, docks, and roads, as well as provision of credits for small boats, freezers, and other equipment. In 1957 total catch was only 2,603 tons; by 1987 it was 36,895 tons, an increase of 1,427% in 30 years. This increased local catch has combined with growing competition from international and commercial Mexican vessels, resulting in diminished catches per person for some coastal communities (Faust, 1990, communication from fisher-men in Rio Lagartos and Las Coloradas). Hale (1996) has reported that fishing is second only to tourism among the economic activities of the peninsula, but that there are serious problems with overfishing of grouper, spiny lobster, and octopus.
Shrimp trawling has damaged other species, particularly marine turtles, and Asian shrimp farming constitutes a threat to the market. Fishing around the reefs is com-mon despite the fact that these marine ecosystems are notoriously fragile and many
species found there are extremely vulnerable to overfishing (Hale, 1996). Gov-ernment agencies have attempted to manage both fishing and hunting, with some success, but they are hampered by a lack of scientific information and resources for enforcement, and by the fact that these activities are not just sports but rather sources of food and income in areas where there are few alternatives.
Government programs to “improve” traditional farming practices have met with little success. Efforts have been made to prohibit burning of swidden plots and en-courage green manuring (with leguminous plants) and the use of crop residues to increase organic material in the soil, in conjunction with chemical fertilizer use.
The rationale has been that the burning of swidden plots destroys tropical forest, while clearing of extensive areas for mechanized agriculture is seen as “permanent and intensive.” The idea is that intensification through mechanization will allow other areas to stay permanently in forest and thereby protect biodiversity and possi-bly the Earth’s atmosphere (Schlesinger, 1991). The paradox is that in areas where for thousands of years swidden agriculturalists have cut and burned small patches of milpa (corn fields interplanted with beans, squash, and other cultivars), the forest and its fauna appear better conserved than in zones that have received government intervention (B. Faust, personal observation; W.J. Folan, 1996, personal communi-cation).
Along the coast, commercial shrimp trawlers have probably killed far more ma-rine turtles than have artisanal fishermen. Tourist development has probably had a more negative effect on hatchling success for both turtles and waterfowl than has the eating of eggs by Maya communities. This is not to argue that present popula-tions of endangered species can withstand even the former levels of predation by Maya communities, given the restricted habitat left to them, but rather to argue that the highest priority for environmental protection should not be restriction of Maya traditional activities but restriction of commercial activities, which have been en-couraged and subsidized by government programs. Analysis of aerial photographs and satellite images combined with terrain-level (and ocean) research should clarify the long-term ecological effects of “sustainable development” projects in compari-son with traditional practices (Moran, 1982, 1993; Bodley [1982], 1990).
Government policies and programs directed toward other priorities have also affected farming practices, as have general processes of modernization. Many com-munities are responding to the 1992 changes in Article 27 of the Agrarian Reform Law, which allow them to divide and sell land originally given as inalienable com-munity property during the reforms of the late 1920s and early 1930s (following the Mexican Revolution). Primary education, medical clinics, electricity, and piped water are available to those who live in towns above a minimum size, increasing population density in those areas. As a consequence, many small hamlets have been abandoned and farm families on the peninsula no longer migrate to relocate around
seasonal ponds or cenotes (sinkholes in the limestone geological foundation of the peninsula) during the agricultural season, as was traditionally done (Faust, 1998;
Antochiw, 1996). Farmers must either live in small groups away from these ser-vices and their families for weeks at a time during the prime planting and harvesting periods or seek fields to work within a few hours of the towns. These modern insti-tutionalized improvements in the quality of life have thus dramatically altered the Maya use of the land and have effectively concentrated population pressures around towns, often resulting in degradation of soils. Many have responded by switching to cattle raising and migrating to urban areas to avoid impoverishment.