ABSTRACT
This chapter makes the case that there has been a significant change of direction for forest- and farm-based livelihoods, and new forms of people–environments interactions, in Indigenous Oaxaca. We argue that agricultural crisis, migration, and the de-territorialization of rural livelihood transforms environmental landscapes and the communities that manage them. We find that migration challenges community practices for self-governance and environmental management, drives declines in agriculture that create new spaces for forest recovery and use, prompts changes in landscape mosaics with implications for biodiversity, and can facilitate changes in environmental perception among community members. While forest transitions may allow new opportunities to emerge through payment for environmental services, community conservation, and ecotourism, it is not clear that such activities can replace agriculture’s traditional foundational contribution to village life and territoriality.
