Biodiversity And Conservation Of The Yucatan Peninsula

Download or read book Biodiversity and Conservation of the Yucatán Peninsula written by Gerald Alexander Islebe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides information relevant for the conservation of biodiversity and the sound management of the coastal and forest ecosystems of the Yucatan Peninsula in the face of global change. Various aspects of the biodiversity of the Yucatan Peninsula are analyzed in an integrative manner, including phenological, ecophysiological, ecological and conservation aspects of plants and animals and their relationships with humans in coastal and forest ecosystems.

Download or read book Sugarcane and Rum written by John Robert Gust and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico may conjure up images of vacation getaways and cocktails by the sea, these easy stereotypes hide a story filled with sweat and toil. The story of sugarcane and rum production in the Caribbean has been told many times. But few know the bittersweet story of sugar and rum in the jungles of the Yucatán Peninsula during the nineteenth century. This is much more than a history of coveted commodities. The unique story that unfolds in John R. Gust and Jennifer P. Mathews’s new history Sugarcane and Rum is told through the lens of Maya laborers who worked under brutal conditions on small haciendas to harvest sugarcane and produce rum. Gust and Mathews weave together ethnographic interviews and historical archives with archaeological evidence to bring the daily lives of Maya workers into focus. They lived in a cycle of debt, forced to buy all of their supplies from the company store and take loans from the hacienda owners. And yet they had a certain autonomy because the owners were so dependent on their labor at harvest time. We also see how the rise of cantinas and distilled alcohol in the nineteenth century affected traditional Maya culture and that the economies of Cancún and the Mérida area are predicated on the rum-influenced local social systems of the past. Sugarcane and Rum brings this bittersweet story to the present and explains how rum continues to impact the Yucatán and the people who have lived there for millennia.

Download or read book Moral Ecology of a Forest written by José E. Martínez-Reyes and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forests are alive, filled with rich, biologically complex life forms and the interrelationships of multiple species and materials. Vulnerable to a host of changing conditions in this global era, forests are in peril as never before. New markets in carbon and environmental services attract speculators. In the name of conservation, such speculators attempt to undermine local land control in these desirable areas. Moral Ecology of a Forest provides an ethnographic account of conservation politics, particularly the conflict between Western conservation and Mayan ontological ecology. The difficult interactions of the Maya of central Quintana Roo, Mexico, for example, or the Mayan communities of the Sain Ka’an Biosphere, demonstrate the clashing interests with Western biodiversity conservation initiatives. The conflicts within the forest of Quintana Roo represent the outcome of nature in this global era, where the forces of land grabbing, conservation promotion and organizations, and capitalism vie for control of forests and land. Forests pose living questions. In addition to the ever-thrilling biology of interdependent species, forests raise questions in the sphere of political economy, and thus raise cultural and moral questions. The economic aspects focus on the power dynamics and ideological perspectives over who controls, uses, exploits, or preserves those life forms and landscapes. The cultural and moral issues focus on the symbolic meanings, forms of knowledge, and obligations that people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and classes have constructed in relation to their lands. The Maya Forest of Quintana Roo is a historically disputed place in which these three questions come together.

Download or read book The Holocene and Anthropocene Environmental History of Mexico written by Nuria Torrescano- Valle and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides essential information on Mexico’s Holocene and Anthropocene climate and vegetation history. Considering the geography of Mexico – which is home to a variety of climatic and environmental conditions, from desert and tropical to high mountain climates – this book focuses on its postglacial paleoecology and paleoclimatology. Further, it analyses human intervention since the middle Holocene as a major agent of environmental change. Offering a valuable tool for understanding past climate change and its relationship with present climate change, the book is a must-read for botanists, ecologists, palaeontologists and graduate students in related fields.

Download or read book Contested Nature written by Steven R. Brechin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can the international conservation movement protect biological diversity, while at the same time safeguarding the rights and fulfilling the needs of people, particularly the poor? Contested Nature argues that to be successful in the long-term, social justice and biological conservation must go hand in hand. The protection of nature is a complex social enterprise, and much more a process of politics, and of human organization, than ecology. Although this political complexity is recognized by practitioners, it rarely enters into the problem analyses that inform conservation policy. Structured around conceptual chapters and supporting case studies that examine the politics of conservation in specific contexts, the book shows that pursuing social justice enhances biodiversity conservation rather than diminishing it, and that the fate of local peoples and that of conservation are completely intertwined.

Download or read book Biodiversity Conservation in Costa Rica written by Gordon W. Frankie and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-02-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation A collection of papers regarding the conservation of Costa Rica's tropical dry forest, which is disappearing more rapidly than its rain forest, due to ease of conversion to agriculture.

Download or read book Indigenous Geographies in the Yucatan written by Miguel Sioui and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-25 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is part of a broader attempt to decolonize colonial histories and understandings about Indigenous peoples and their relationships with their territories, and argues that the land ethos of "being part of the land," specifically among the Mayan community of Xuilub (Yucatan), Mexico, is guided by the cultural precept of 'responsibility-based' thinking. The work uniquely adds much needed insights into 'responsibility-based' thinking for land-use practices, and develops a theoretical framework for assessing historical impacts on Indigenous cultures and livelihoods. In six chapters, the text bridges Western and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) approaches to achieve deeper understanding of IKs, focusing on more Indigenous-centered methods, with the goal of expanding the disciplinary perspectives of postcolonial scholarship and Indigenous geographies. The book contains useful information for environmental planning/management scholars and geographers who may not be familiar with Indigenous approaches to land-use, and to Indigenous geographers working to bridge Western and Indigenous methodologies.