285
(b) lands of common use. They constitute the economic backbone of the community
life within the ejido. They represent that area that has not been assigned by the
ejido assembly for human settlement or plots. It can be defined also as public land,
though there are several variations of “common use” within the ejidos; and (c) parceled land. These are lands owned by individual ejidatarios, or several ejidatarios
as a whole, who have the right to use, usufruct, and sell the land (Jones and Ward
1998).
Given the array of land tenure regimes in Mexico, it can be argued that these
regimes are an implicit form of environmental governance at local level. This is
because Mexican states have fewer powers related to land use than the national
government and the country’s constitution itself specifies that municipalities are the
planning authorities. They can decide on land use as long as they take other constitutional provisions and guidelines of higher levels of government into account. To
do so, they rely upon several planning instruments which goes from developing
land-use environmental and economic plans that control land-use changes and
decide, for example, whether or not to issue building permits or allow the construction of landfills. Exceptions are limited to the mining and water extraction sectors
that are currently regulated by the national governments. Municipalities are also
responsible for land administration within their jurisdiction. Furthermore, they can
set property taxes and are responsible for the provision of public services and infrastructure (Barnes 2014).
The relationship between the spatial patterns and the temporal trends of aridity
and the two land property regimes analyzed in Mexico can be interpreted in at least
two ways. First, in terms of the allocation of land during the key historical moments
of land redistribution described above. In other words: were the majority of lands
that were allocated to communal lands more arid than those allocated to noncommunal lands? Second, the relationship could be interpreted in terms of outcomes of differentiated land governance institutional arrangements. In other words:
are communal property regimes better at reducing aridification or lands? The environmental outcomes of communal land regimes in general have been analyzed
extensively in the literature. Yet there is still no consensus on whether these outcomes are better than those of other land regime arrangements (Ojanen et al. 2017).
Most research in Mexico has focused on deforestation. Less systematic research
exists on the environmental outcomes and realities of common property institutions
in arid lands.
In this chapter we first calculated and mapped the aridity index, its changes and
trends based on climate data for two different time periods (1961–1990 and 1991–
2017) for the 33 Latin American country members of the United Nations. We then
analyzed the difference of aridity patterns between common property lands and
non-common property lands in Mexico.
16 Drylands, Aridification, and Land Governance in Latin America: A Regional…
(b) lands of common use. They constitute the economic backbone of the community
life within the ejido. They represent that area that has not been assigned by the
ejido assembly for human settlement or plots. It can be defined also as public land,
though there are several variations of “common use” within the ejidos; and (c) parceled land. These are lands owned by individual ejidatarios, or several ejidatarios
as a whole, who have the right to use, usufruct, and sell the land (Jones and Ward
1998).
Given the array of land tenure regimes in Mexico, it can be argued that these
regimes are an implicit form of environmental governance at local level. This is
because Mexican states have fewer powers related to land use than the national
government and the country’s constitution itself specifies that municipalities are the
planning authorities. They can decide on land use as long as they take other constitutional provisions and guidelines of higher levels of government into account. To
do so, they rely upon several planning instruments which goes from developing
land-use environmental and economic plans that control land-use changes and
decide, for example, whether or not to issue building permits or allow the construction of landfills. Exceptions are limited to the mining and water extraction sectors
that are currently regulated by the national governments. Municipalities are also
responsible for land administration within their jurisdiction. Furthermore, they can
set property taxes and are responsible for the provision of public services and infrastructure (Barnes 2014).
The relationship between the spatial patterns and the temporal trends of aridity
and the two land property regimes analyzed in Mexico can be interpreted in at least
two ways. First, in terms of the allocation of land during the key historical moments
of land redistribution described above. In other words: were the majority of lands
that were allocated to communal lands more arid than those allocated to noncommunal lands? Second, the relationship could be interpreted in terms of outcomes of differentiated land governance institutional arrangements. In other words:
are communal property regimes better at reducing aridification or lands? The environmental outcomes of communal land regimes in general have been analyzed
extensively in the literature. Yet there is still no consensus on whether these outcomes are better than those of other land regime arrangements (Ojanen et al. 2017).
Most research in Mexico has focused on deforestation. Less systematic research
exists on the environmental outcomes and realities of common property institutions
in arid lands.
In this chapter we first calculated and mapped the aridity index, its changes and
trends based on climate data for two different time periods (1961–1990 and 1991–
2017) for the 33 Latin American country members of the United Nations. We then
analyzed the difference of aridity patterns between common property lands and
non-common property lands in Mexico.
16 Drylands, Aridification, and Land Governance in Latin America: A Regional…