Jaguar Conservation and Community Forest Protected Areas in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca , Mexico

Abstract

The conservation of wide-ranging large carnivores like the jaguar (Panthera onca) has until now been focused on large public protected areas (PA). However, if the jaguar and its prey are to be conserved in larger landscapes beyond PAs, institutional arrangements must be established that allow its persistence in other forms of land tenure. The state of Oaxaca is the most biodiverse in Mexico and ninety-five percent of the territory is under common property regimes, largely by indigenous peoples. In recent years, conservation-oriented community-based management regimes have emerged, but there was no scientific documentation of jaguar presence in Oaxaca and on the patterns of human-jaguar interactions. In this study, we examine jaguar presence based on camera -trap surveys and human-jaguar interaction based on semi-structured and structured interviews in over 100 households in four communities in the Chinantla ethnic region of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico. The camera -trap photos established the presence of at least two jaguars and 16 species of prey animals. Deforestation in the region may limit the viability of the jaguar in this landscape, but newly emerging management institutions may favor its persistence. The interviews documented persistent losses of livestock to jaguar predation over a twenty-year period, with a resulting decline in the size of the herds. However, migration and dependence on remittance incomes has also served to reduce interest in cattle raising. At the same time, the interviews suggest the emergence of a new conservation -oriented culture in the communities that may also favor continued jaguar conservation. The conclusion is that it is possible to reconcile human presence with large charismatic carnivores like the jaguar. Community conservation areas are not new in Oaxaca, but new institutions at multiple scales are encouraging their formal establishment with the possibility of fulfilling the role of public protected areas in these community dominated landscapes. Long-term biodiversity conservation strategies in forested areas depends on the participation of all stakeholders and the channeling of benefits from payments for environmental services, ecotourism, and other sources so that the costs of jaguar conservation are not assumed only by the forest communities.