Forest cover change and land tenure change in Mexico's avocado region: Is community forestry related to reduced deforestation for high value crops?

Forest cover change in highland pine-oak forests of Michoacan, Mexico is due to a process of conversion of natural forests to avocado orchards. Privately-owned avocado orchards are found on land that was common forest before the 1992 Reform of the Mexican Constitution. We ask how forest cover change was facilitated by policy changes that affected land tenure rules and existing community forestry programs. We use a comparative case study of four communities, an analysis of forest cover change, and interviews and household surveys. Results show that 33.1% of forest cover was lost over a 16-year-period across the region. However, two forestry case study communities lost 7.2% and 15.1% of forest cover, while two adjacent non-forestry communities lost 86.5% and 92.4%, respectively. interview data show that the Reform of Article 27 combined with the 1992 Forestry Law led to collapse of local governance, illegal division of common forests, and illegal logging in the two non-forestry communities. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.