The Communal Value of Ejidos
Before the Spanish conquest, many Indigenous communities throughout Mesoamerica maintained communal structures of land ownership and management, some of which inspired Mexico’s contemporary ejidos. Though ejidos were outlawed in the 19th century, land reform reinstated the system, resulting in the return of significant land areas to Indigenous communities throughout Mexico in the 1970s.
Today, ejidos own more than 53% of Mexico’s land surface and manage more than 60% of the country's forests.
As many ejidos are finding innovative ways to manage land communally, create economic stability, and protect their natural resources, they still face many political and economic obstacles. Our newest partner, Red MOCAF, supports Indigenous and campesino communities organized within ejidos to collaboratively address these obstacles, ultimately reviving ancestral ethics of shared ownership and communal benefit.
Over the coming year, in addition to supporting Red MOCAF’s continued engagement with these communities, we’ll further explore the successes and challenges of ejidos as alternative economic structures within our study supported by the Ford Foundation.
Given their extensive shared ownership of Mexico’s forest lands, ejidos are commonly practicing communal forest management, developing unique structures to simultaneously steward forests and sustain local communities.
In Puebla, for example, we’ve collaborated with Red MOCAF to support the Acolihuia ejido’s approaches to forest management. In addition to reforesting more than 9 hectares of degraded lands, the project equips a local group of women artisans with wood-working tools and other equipment. These women use waste wood cleared from their forests to produce handicrafts, furniture, and other products that generate income for the community.
Other ejidos working with Red MOCAF are developing diverse community-owned businesses, building autonomous community micro-banking systems, reviving agroforestry and agroecology practices, and creating ecotourism ventures, amongst many other unique efforts.
Ultimately, ejidos' practices of communal social and economic structures are practices of sovereignty. The cultural roots of communal values run deep in the region, and living those values out amidst contemporary systems proves challenging, but fruitful.
