Mexican Water Users and Indigenous Foresters Funded

WASHINGTON, DC, December 10, 2003 - The World Bank has approved two 10 year loans for a total amount of $324.3 million for irrigation modernization and community forestry projects in Mexico. The decisions, made Tuesday, are intended to benefit some 500 communities and about 110,000 farmers as well.

“Besides strengthening the communities’ decisionmaking process, the project is expected to increase the income from forest production, and diversify household incomes,” said Daniel Gross, World Bank task manager for the project.

The $303 million loan for the Integrated Irrigation Modernization Project aims to improve the competitiveness of irrigated agriculture and the efficiency of irrigation water use.

The irrigation project will support the modernization of the existing irrigation infrastructure, increased productivity of irrigated agriculture and diversification into high value crops.

The funds will underwrite the consolidation of the transfer of irrigation infrastructure to water users, and institutional strengthening of water users’ organizations to enhance their participation in irrigation infrastructure and investment decisions.

Irrigated bean plants in Mexico (Photo courtesy Instituto Nacional de Investiaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP)

Since project will only include rehabilitation of existing infrastructure, and not the construction of new infrastructure, the bank foresees no significant negative environmental impacts from project activities.

Improved management of irrigation water is expected to reduce water logging and soil salinity, with the positive environmental impact as a result, the bank says.

The $21.3 million loan for the Second Community Forestry Project seeks to assist indigenous communities and ejidos, groups that hold land communally, to improve the management and conservation of their forest resources, and to generate alternative sources of income in a sustainable manner.

The Second Community Forestry Project will finance technical assistance and pilot investments through Mexico’s newly created National Forestry Commission on a demand-driven basis to support indigenous communities and ejidos, who own forests in the states of Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca and Quintana Roo.

The funds will be available for feasibility studies, market analysis and the development of pilot projects for timber and non-timber forest products, technical training for community members, as well as to help build inter-community associations, and strengthen the cadre of technical service providers available to communities.

The new venture is expected to benefit as many as 200 communities and ejidos, and continue to assist some 300 communities that participated in the first Community Forestry Project.

“Both projects are essential in supporting several of the goals included in Mexico’s Country Assistance Strategy, such as balancing growth and poverty reduction with environmental protection,” said Isabel Guerrero, World Bank country director for Colombia and Mexico.

Of the 55.2 million hectares (213,130 square miles) of forested land in Mexico, about 70 percent is owned by indigenous communities and ejidos, according to a 1995 World Bank study.

Cloud forest in the state of Oxaca (Photo courtesy University of Kentucky)

The bank says that to impose such changes through a system of command and control is not politically feasible would not be likely to be a successful strategy.

The First Community Forestry Project sought to strengthen the capacity of the indigenous communities and ejidos to take sound management decisions in a communal context while raising the living standards of the villagers through improved forest management.

In an independent mid-term evaluation of the First Community Forestry Project, Billie De Walt, director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, was complimentary.

"The project has a socially conscious, dedicated staff who are working well with communities," De Walt said. "Although most are trained as forestry engineers, they are working extraordinarily well in thinking about means for diversifying sources of income from the forest as well as in developing methods for natural resource conservation. The project has moved well beyond just establishing better means for timber production."

The first Community Forestry Project was enough of a success that the bank believes an extension of the project is warranted.

The bank said the project demonstrated that poor communities can generate significant income through the systematic management of natural resources.

But the bank says that while the first Community Forestry Project was successful in some areas, the rate and extent of deforestation and forest degradation in Mexico in general and, particularly in areas yet untouched by the project, is still as high as 680,000 hectares (2,625 square miles) per year.

The objective of the Second Community Forestry Project is to help indigenous communities and ejidos to strengthen community and ejido ties, better manage their forest resources, diversify forest production, create and strengthen community enterprises and increase their income.

Six Mexican states were selected for the project - Oaxaca, Guerrero and Michoacan, where the first community forestry project operated, will continue into the second phase joined by three new states - Durango, Jalisco and Quintana Roo.

The project will work by making private sector technical assistance available to communities that own economically valuable forest lands to help them manage their forest resources in an ecologically and financially sustainable fashion. It will be implemented by a new agency, the National Forestry Commission, CONAFOR, created in 2001 by the government of Mexico.