The effects of communal land certification on deforestation : evidence from Mexico
Kutzman, Daley et al.
Economic theory predicts that well-defined private property rights over natural resources like forests should improve efficiency as the negative externalities of use are internalized by the user. Thus the strengthening of property rights and the subsequent reduction in tenure insecurity should improve forest extraction incentives. As a part of Mexicoos second agrarian reform in 1993, the Programa de Certificacion de Derechos Ejidales y Titulacion de Solares (Procede) was implemented to certify all land in Mexicoos ejido communities. Created in the first agrarian reform of 1917, these ejidos were characterized by significant levels of tenure insecurity in their usufruct rights system and over common property forests before certification through Procede. Using LANDSAT images to characterize land use in Mexico over this period, we find that the average ejido does in fact slow deforestation in response to certification. However, high returns to deforestation and the structure of the reform may have provided incentive to clear land prior to certification for some ejidos. Those with low deforestation returns increased the area of forested land by 72.1 hectares due to certification, whereas ejidos with high deforestation returns reduced the area of forested land by 59.2 hectares. In total, the area deforested over 1990-2010 would have been approximately 14.1% higher had Procede not been implemented and ejido land left uncertified.
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