Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning ... - UTas ePrints

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forest certification in developing and transitioning countries
Structural Features
Ownership and Tenure
Mexico has a vegetated area of 127.6 million hectares, of which 63.5 million hectares
are forest, and 64.1 million hectares are xerophyte scrubland and other types of vegetation.
This vegetated area represents 66 percent of its national territory (SEMAR-
NAT 2002). Of total forest area, 80 percent is social property (belonging to ejidos and
communities), 15 percent is private property (small-scale landowners), and the
remaining 5 percent is government property. Mexico is one of the few countries in the
world in which property rights to forestlands were given to agrarian communities
and ejidos subsequent to the revolutionary struggle of 1910 (Bray 2004). In Mexico,
three types of property are recognized: communal property where communities (typically
indigenous communities) own the territory; ejido property (a form which
emerged out of post-revolutionary agrarian reform and which refers to property
owners, ejidatarios, who received land grants for individual use, but under community
administration); and finally, small property, which refers to privately owned
forestlands.
Presently, twelve million people live in the forest areas of Mexico, most of them
affected by extreme poverty, which has led to high levels of outward migration to
larger cities for many years (CONAFOR 2001).
The federal government has primary jurisdiction for regulating forest resources.
SEMARNAT (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales/The Secretariat of
the Environment and Natural Resources) is the agency charged with administering
policy and with delegating key aspects of forest management responsibility to the 32
federal entities.
In contrast, the National Forest Agency (CONAFOR) is the agency in charge of
promoting activities related to sustainable forest use, forest protection, plantation
development and restoration. CONAFOR provides economic resources to forest
owners, which are allocated as subsidies. The Federal Environmental Protection
Office (PROFEPA/Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente) is the institution in
charge of enforcing the law and carrying out inspection operations and forest surveillance,
with state governments and municipalities collaborating and carrying out
development, restoration, and forest surveillance programs.
Before forests can be used for commercial purposes in Mexico, SEMARNAT must
grant authorization. Interested parties must present the following documents: a
Forest Management Report, legal documentation that safeguards property rights
within the forest site, and, in the case of communities and ejidos, an assembly act
granting use of the forest site and proof of tax payments to the federal government
for the use of these resources. Communities and ejidos, like private individuals, must
also make tax payments for the right to access the forest resource. Permits for the use
of forest sites are generally issued for a period of ten years.
In 2000, 2,616 permits were registered at SEMARNAT. The states with the most
permits are shown in Table 1.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies