Highland Maya indigenous management and implications for biodiversity

Background/Question/Methods and Results/Conclusions

In the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico the Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya have developed an elaborate knowledge system and modes of interacting with the biophysical environment.  Their landscape today is very much an anthropogenic landscape, with a patchy mosaic of different ecological zones that, in most cases, are human determined. Without human presence in the region, montane pine-oak forest would dominate. The heterogenous landscape due to human activity results in higher levels of beta and gamma diversity. Much of the landscape is utilized by the Highland Maya in some form or another.  Swidden agriculture creates a variety of different successional stages and habitats throughout the landscape. Medicinal and wild food plants are gathered from many of these habitats, with early successional habitats being the most important with the number of useful species dropping off significantly in forested areas. Primary forest provides very few useful species and none of the species utilized in primary forests are obligates. There is significant variation amongst communities in the region regarding favored species and areas for foraging.  Traditional management practices have been threatened in recent decades due to population pressure and the introduction of chemical inputs into agriculture. Implications for general conservation and the relationship between human well-being and the biophysical environment are discussed.