Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T10:53:22.865Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Land Abandonment in an Agricultural Frontier After a Plant Invasion: The Case of Bracken Fern in Southern Yucatán, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Laura Schneider  and
Jacqueline Geoghegan
Laura Schneider
Affiliation:
Department of Geography at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey
Jacqueline Geoghegan
Affiliation:
Department of Economics at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts
Get access

Abstract

Plant invasions and their impact on land use pose difficult research questions, due to the complex relationships between the ecological nature of the invasion and the human responses to the invasion. This paper focuses on the linkages between an invasion of bracken fern and land use decisions in an agricultural frontier in southern Mexico. Agriculture in this region is practiced on an extensive basis, using traditional slash-and-burn techniques of temporary cultivation and continuous rotation through forest fallow. We investigate the factors that affect the decision of a subsistence farmer to either continue cultivating an invaded agricultural plot or permanently abandon the plot and cultivate elsewhere. We develop an agricultural household model of land use choices, where households maximize utility subject to constraints on land, labor, and income. We subsequently test the hypotheses raised, using data from a small household survey performed in the region in 2002.

Keywords

bracken fern invasionland abandonmentagricultural household modelMexico
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , April 2006 , pp. 167 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achard, F. Eva, H. Glinni, A. Mayaux, P. Richards, T. and Stibig, H. eds. 1998. “Identification of Deforestation Hot Spot Areas in the Humid Tropics.” Trees Publishing Series B, Research Report No. 4, Space Application Institute, Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Brussels.Google Scholar
Albers, H.J. and Goldbach, M.J. 2000. “Irreversible Ecosystem Change, Species Competition, and Shifting Cultivation.” Resource and Energy Economics 22(3): 261–280.Google Scholar
Albers, H.J. Goldbach, M.J. and Kaffine, D.T. 2006. “Implications of Agricultural Policy for Species Invasion in Shifting Cultivation Systems.” Environment and Development Economics (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, S. 1991. “Optimal Soil Conservation and the Reform of Agricultural Pricing Policies.” Journal of Development Economics 36(2): 167–187.Google Scholar
Caviglia-Harris, J.L. 2004. “Household Production and Forest Clearing: The Role of Farming in the Development of the Amazon.” Environment and Development Economics 9(2): 181–202.Google Scholar
Caviglia-Harris, J.L. 2005. “Cattle Accumulation and Land Use Intensification by Households in the Brazilian Amazon.” Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 34(2): 145–162.Google Scholar
Caviglia-Harris, J.L. and Sills, E.O. 2005. “Land Use and Income Diversification: Comparing Traditional and Colonist Population in the Brazilian Amazon.” Agricultural Economics 32(3): 221–237.Google Scholar
D'Antonio, C.M. and Kark, S. 2002. “Impacts and Extent of Biotic Invasions in Terrestrial Ecosystems.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17(5): 202–204.Google Scholar
Dvorak, K. 1992. “Resource Management by West African Farmers and the Economics of Shifting Cultivation.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 74(3): 809–815.Google Scholar
Geoghegan, J. Cortina Villar, S. Klepeis, P. Macario Mendoza, P. Ogneva-Himmelberger, Y. Plotkin, A.B. Roy Chowdhury, R. Turner, B.L. II, and Vance, C. 2001. “Modeling Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region: Comparing Survey and Satellite Data.” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 84(1-3): 25–46.Google Scholar
Geoghegan, J. Schneider, L. and Vance, C. 2004. “Temporal Dynamics and Spatial Scales: Modeling Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region.” GeoJournal 61(4): 353–363.Google Scholar
Hobbs, R.J. 2000. “Land-Use Changes and Invasions.” In Mooney, H.A. and Hobbs, R.J. eds., Invasive Species in a Changing World. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.Google Scholar
Ickowitz, A. and Knapp, K. 2005. “Modeling the Dynamics of Shifting Cultivation.” Paper presented at the Eastern Economics Association's annual meetings, New York, NY (March).Google Scholar
Klepeis, P. and Vance, C. 2003. “Neoliberal Policy and Deforestation in Southeastern Mexico: An Assessment of the PROCAMPO Program.” Economic Geography 79(3): 221–240.Google Scholar
Krautkraemer, J.A. 1994. “Population Growth, Soil Fertility, and Agricultural Intensification.” Journal of Development Economics 44(2): 403–428.Google ScholarPubMed
McNeely, J.A. (ed.). 2001. The Great Reshuffling: Human Dimensions of Invasive Alien Species. Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK: IUCN.Google Scholar
Mooney, H.A. and Hobbs, R.J. 2000. “Global Change and Invasive Species.” In Mooney, H.A. and Hobbs, R.J. eds., Invasive Species in a Changing World. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.Google Scholar
Page, C.N. 1986. “The Strategies of Bracken as Permanent Ecological Opportunist.” In Smith, R.T. and Taylor, J.A. eds., Bracken: Ecology, Land Use and Control Technology. Carnforth, UK: Parthenon Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Pakeman, R.J. Marrs, R.H. Howard, D.C. Barr, C.J. and Muller, R.M. 1996. “The Bracken Problem in Great Britain: Its Present Extent and Future Changes.” Applied Geography 16(1): 65–86.Google Scholar
Pendleton, L.H. and Howe, E.L. 2002. “Market Integration, Development, and Smallholder Forest Clearance.” Land Economics 78(1): 1–19.Google Scholar
Pérez-Salicrup, D. 2004. “Forest Types and Their Implications.” In Turner, B.L. II, Geoghegan, J. and Foster, D. eds., Integrated Land-Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan: Final Frontiers. Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pimentel, D. Lach, L. Zuniga, R. and Morrison, D. 2002. “Environmental and Economic Costs Associated with Non-Indigenous Species in United States.” In Pimentel, D. ed., Biological Invasions: Economic and Environmental Cost of Alien Plant, Animal and Microbe Species. New York: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Pinchón, F.J. 1997. “Colonist Land-Allocation Decisions, Land-Use and Deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon Frontier.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 45(4): 707–744.Google Scholar
Schneider, L.C. 2004. “Bracken Fern Invasion in Southern Yucatán: A Case for Land Change Science.” Geographical Review 94(2): 229–241.Google Scholar
Singh, I. Squire, L. and Strauss, J. 1986. Agricultural Household Models: Extensions, Applications, and Policy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Suazo, I. 1998. “Aspectos Ecológicos de la Especie Invasora Pteridium aquilinum L. Kuhn en una Selva Húmeda de la Region de Chajul, Chiapas, México.” Facultad de Biología, Morelia, Michoacán, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Michoacán. Google Scholar
Taylor, J.E. and Adelman, I. 2003. “Agricultural Household Models: Genesis, Evolution and Extensions.” Review of Economics of the Household 1(1): 33–58.Google Scholar
Turner, B.L. II 1983. Once Beneath the Forest: Prehistoric Terracing in the Ri'o Bec Region of the Maya Lowlands. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Turner, B.L. II, Geoghegan, J. and Foster, D.R. (eds.). 2004. Integrated Land-Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan: Final Frontiers. Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vance, C. 2004. “The Semi-Market and Semi-Subsistence Household: The Evidence and Test of Smallholder Behavior.” In Turner, B.L. II, Geoghegan, J. and Foster, D.R. eds., Integrated Land-Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan: Final Frontiers. Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vance, C. and Geoghegan, J. 2002. “Temporal and Spatial Modeling of Tropical Deforestation: A Survival Analysis Linking Satellite and Household Survey Data.” Agricultural Economics 27(3): 317–332.Google Scholar
Vitousek, P.M. 1994. “Beyond Global Warming: Ecology and Global Change.” Ecology 75(7): 1861–1876.Google Scholar
Vitousek, P.M. Mooney, H.A. Lubchenco, J. and Melillo, J.M. 1997. “Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems.” Science 277(5325): 494–500.Google Scholar