• DOI:10.1080/10714839.2003.11724544
• Corpus ID: 185178958

Mexico: Lacandon Selva Conflict Grows

@article{Weinberg2003MexicoLS,
  title={Mexico: Lacandon Selva Conflict Grows},
  author={Bill Weinberg},
  journal={NACLA Report on the Americas},
  year={2003},
  volume={36},
  pages={26 - 31}
}

• B. Weinberg
• Published 1 May 2003
• Political Science
• NACLA Report on the Americas

BY BILL WEINBERG The Cessna bush plane takes off from Ocosingo, where the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico slope down to the Lacandon Selva-the jungle. We leave behind paved roads and the electricity grid, heading into the verdant canyonlands of what remains a wild frontier, a stretch of jungle along the Guatemalan border only partly under government control. And we are flying into the deepest and most hotly contested part of it-the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. An ongoing conflict over the reserve has pitted settlers from the highlands against international environmental groups, who say settlements are threatening protected land, and the Mexican government. The settlers and their supporters in the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) charge the government wants to forcibly expel them both to reclaim the jungle from rebel control and to carry out development plans, exploiting the area's natural and biological resources. The land we are flying over is a patchwork of forest and areas cleared for cattle ranches and peasant communities. But as we head south into Montes Azules, the forested areas grow. The Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, at 331,200 hectares, is a fifth the total size of the original Lacandon Selva, a lowland tropical forest in the basin of the Usumacinta River east of the Chiapas Highlands. Established in 1978, the reserve is recognized by the U.N. Environment Program for its global biological and cultural significance. In 1992 the 61,874-hectare Lacantdn Reserve, which includes the Classic Maya archeological sites of Yaxchilan and Bonampak, was added to the biosphere reserve. 1