Sustainable development in semiarid ecosystems of Mexico -the challenge of mapping human wellbeing on rangeland landscapes considering ecosystem services

Background/Question/Methods In Mexico's rangelands, livestock production, land conversion for subsistence farming, and long periods of drought have caused severe degradation of large areas of drylands resulting in loss of perennial grass cover, soil carbon, fertility, water retention capacity, i.e., in key ecosystem services and fundamental biophysical support for sustainable livelihood development in these socio-ecological systems. During the last two decades, the Mexican government developed institutions to improve human wellbeing in rural communities and to support productive activities in response to the international call for sustainable development. The objective of our study was to assess the emerging complexity of desertified rangeland landscapes in Central Mexico and the challenges faced to mitigate for environmental change. We addressed the following questions: what are the key socio-economic and biophysical variables involved in the process of decision-making and community response to government interventions aimed for mitigating environmental change in five communities in the Central Plateau of Mexico. We examined the nature and impact of government programs and laws and their potential impact on key ecosystem processes using the Drylands Development Paradigm (DDP) as an analytical framework that allows the critical assessment of socio-ecological system complexity. Results/Conclusions We identified two government programs associated with sustainable development in Mexico's drylands targeted towards livestock and staple food production. We observed marked differences in soil fertility, soil carbon and hydrological function in sites managed by producers having access to government subsidy programs compared to those being excluded from these assets. Also, access to government programs intended to subsidize corn and bean production for human use, rather enhanced livestock production, as these crops were used as supplementary forage. Government help programs targeted towards livestock production occasionally stimulated community organization to diversify management/land use practices including communal year-round and small-group temporal dry-seasonal grazing systems with clear effects on plant cover and hydrological processes. While government programs enhanced short-term productivity, they are not enhancing those supporting and regulating ecosystem services in Mexican rangelands with potential to mitigate for land degradation. This trend was also observed in Mexican environmental legislation, which does consider the coupled nature of social-ecological production systems, however with an equilibrium focus and ignoring non-linearity and uncertainty characteristics of complex systems characterizing the environmental change context. In synthesis, the analysis of Mexican rangelands as complex socio-ecological systems suggests the country faces important challenges to develop truly sustainable approaches to achieve both development and mitigation strategies for global change.