Community-based land sparing: Territorial land-use zoning and forest management in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico

Land sparing land-use practices have been proposed as a strategy for optimizing commodity production, whether food or timber, and biodiversity conservation. Land sparing approaches have been criticized for being unrealistic in developing countries, as sustainable land sharing is well documented, high commodity yields and biodiversity can co-exist, and the land-use pattern a particular landscape exhibits is heavily dependent on development history. As well, the kind of large-scale land use planning required is highly unlikely in developing countries and rare in developed ones. However, in situations where large-scale land sparing could be carried out with democratic participation supported by government policy, it is entirely likely that there could be benefits for commodity production, biodiversity conservation, and community well-being. We present a regional case study of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. Resulting from historical phases of both passive and active land-use zoning, we found that 23 communities, with a total area of 201,093.94 hectares, and with forest management plans for ten to twenty years, have zoned 36% of the total territory for conservation, 37% for timber production, 5% for restoration, and 22% for agriculture and other uses, with 78% (156,550.63 ha) of the total area, forested. An average of 39% of the timber production areas was logged in the most recent ten-year period (2003–2013), leaving 61% of the forest production area in reserve, under medium-term conservation. Over a 20-year period, this highly forested landscape has produced nearly 3 million metric tons of timber. This suggests that community-based land sparing may be a viable option for commodity production and forest conservation.