Towards Farmer-led governance of the Forest Frontier in the Tropical Mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. What Role for Socio-Ecological Role Playing Games?

Public lecture by Luis García Barrios, Senior Researcher, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Video Recording HERE)

Friday, February 20, 2015 – 3:30pm
Dana 1028

Multifunctional tropical mountain landscapes with diverse and appropriate spatial distribution of forested and open land were the basis of local livelihoods for centuries, and are still critical for local and external populations. Many tropical mountain landscapes are degrading and losing these capacities as a consequence of global neoliberal market expansion, external actors´ take- over of territories and resources, local livelihood crises, deforestation and overgrazing. The buffer zone of a MAB reserve in Chiapas, Mexico has developed – after NAFTA- a silvopastoral landscape which is very vulnerable to social and environmental degradation.

We have developed (2007-2014) research and action to help strengthen the capacity of local and regional social actors to engage in participatory territorial governance, and address these issues in a socially just and ecologically sound manner. In this seminar we will focus on our efforts to develop and implement with farmers and other actors a series of educational agent based models and table-board games that address both ecological and social issues related with forest and agroforest management, and governance at the plot and landscape level. We will give a general overview of the companion modeling  approach and exemplify with results from an experiment we developed that explores how farmers and academics differ strongly when solving a very threatening social dilemma created by individualized cash transfers offered to players to induce specific land uses at the forest frontier.