Community management of water and forest in the Sierra Nevada, Mexico: the case of Santa Isabel Chalma, Amecameca

Abstract

This study investigates the construction processes of civil society in the middle of the second decade of this century, in a community management association of forest and water, in an indigenous forest region focused on its forest preservation and its water resources. The problem faced is the need to modernize its forms of traditional community organization in face to the degeneration of its normative systems and the change to a cooperative or communal social enterprise that generates enough incomes to avoid the internal labor migration and subsistence agricultural production. The presence of trained “historical” leaders with deep environmental awareness rooted in the collective memory of the struggle and the local culture of indigenous roots, has been a key to develop this organization, as well as the community participation structures in tasks and assemblies and committees. The study was carried out through frequent group visits in a community from the Sierra Nevada, Amecameca, State of Mexico, where semi-structured interviews were applied to community leaders, forest tours and in the meltwater channeling network and participant observations in meetings about water committees. It was found that the social capital of the community management association of forest is heavier and stronger that the drinking water system management, due to the greater social homogeneity, collective memory and cultural capital of the community members, as well as the nature of the forest as a common good, compared to the social heterogeneity of water users and its nature as a public good of the vital liquid.