Farmers are unlikely to purchase productivity-enhancing technology when they can realize higher net returns through cheaper, "less technical" methods. Boserup's framework is especially relevant in the context of deforestation, since much of that problem revolves around the question of "productivity," without specifying productivity of what or the inputs considered in the comparison. Deforestation is often cited as an irrational use of resources in which high-value forest species are destroyed to be replaced by non-sustainable food-crop production.
Nevertheless, any discussion of productivity must recognise that such a measure requires the definition of a "product"; since poor land users need food, productivity can be rationally measured in that metric.
In many cases, another "product" of interest is tenure title security, improved through the utilization of the land. Activities which clearly demonstrate use are given priority by Central American farmers in an attempt to strengthen usufruct claims to land, although these activities are not always the most productive in terms of cash income or long-term land use stability. The elimination of natural forest is considered one of the clearest and strongest demonstrations of active land use.
The phases of intensification broadly correspond to phases of land titling. The phase of lowest intensity exploitation corresponds to a period of exploration and initial claims by agriculturalists. In Latin America, the majority of national lands are available for homesteading, but contradictory claims often arise between homesteaders and non-local claimants with legal rather than usufruct bases for their claims.
The claims of usufruct possessors of land grow stronger with time of occupation, so the earliest "settlers" in a forest region are essentially testing the legal waters to see if their usufruct claims will be disputed. Initial usufruct claims require minimal actual use of the land, in some cases the mere act of fencing land being sufficient to demonstrate the land is being "actively" utilized. When land is later transferred to another farmer through a "letter of sale" carta de yenta , the usufruct claim is strengthened by the transaction itself, since it implies that there are no active competing claims to the land, and further documents the history of use.
The following phase of settlement is one of farm consolidation. Land is more completely cleared, and significant investments are made on the farm, especially in buildings, more secure fencing, and other farm infrastructure.
During the earlier phase of occupation, these investments are not justified, due to the possibility that possession will be lost through legal proceedings. Investments may even be counter-productive at that stage, since the increased value and desirability of the land may in and of themselves encourage competing claims by raising the rewards of a successful title challenge.
During the consolidation phase, the possibility of losing land through legal procedures continues, but the economic burden of these challenges decreases with time; as the farmer builds equity and a usufruct history on the farm, the costs of a title challenge increase for the challenger, as do the farmer's economic and legal capacity for meeting such a challenge.
Agricultural practices remain extensive, with long rotations, limited improvements in pastures, and the gradual elimination of forest areas on the farm. The final phase is one of intensification, or what is generally recognized as "agricultural development. Land titling itself is another, independent, consideration. Given the existence of the usufruct orientation, a legal title in itself does not guarantee land tenure security.
It does establish a strong claim to the land and considerably enhances a usufruct claim. Due to the cost of titling and the time and special knowledge required, farmers often do not go through a formal titling process.
Over half the farms in Central America probably have no formal title. Land titling may occur at any point in the process of occupation, but depends largely on the wealth of the owner.
Wealthier owners establish formal title earlier on in the occupation process, but even farmers of more modest means seek titles as land value increases.
The process of land titling is not only a legal and social process, but a political one as well. At the initiation of the process, a piece of land is no more than a statistic from the perspective of the government. No taxes are generated, and there is no clear relation between individuals on the land and the government. Lands may even be occupied by foreign nationals who feel more moral and political commitment to their country of origin.
The establishment of usufruct, the registration of purchase and sale transactions in legal documents, the formation of local groups of land holders, and finally the formalization of these groups in political entities municipalities and of the land in legal entities titled lands represent sucessive levels of incorporation of land and individuals into the national life.
This dynamic of land occupation is fundamental to patterns of land use in Central America. The occupation of land, the uses to which it is put, and most importantly, the disposition of standing forest are all most clearly understood in that context.
Theoretically, planned colonization projects are designed to correct the deficiencies of this informal titling and occupation process. For a number of reasons, however, informal titling still underlies formal projects, despite efforts to the contrary. Farmers still transfer land using "letters of sale," and settlement projects often follow settlers into new areas, either in an attempt to regularize the informal settlement or to begin an alternative, formal settlement procedure in a nearby area.
Planned projects frequently come into contact with informally titled land and at times are forced to address land questions in those terms. Although peasant farmers are often the immediate agents of land clearance, their actions are not always motivated by long-term farming interests. Poor farmers react to the larger social and economic environment, with its economic limitations and opportunities, and may clear land which is ultimately used by other, possibly larger, farmers.
Heckadon Moreno and McKay's work in Panama has provided a descriptive basis for understanding both the cultural and ecological dynamics of the land clearance process. As the traditional agricultural areas of Panama have come to suffer increased pressure on farm-land resources, farmers from the "interior provinces," especially from Los Santos on the Azuero Peninsula, have migrated into the tropical forest areas of the country.
As grain yields decrease, pasture is planted, until the farm has been completely converted; the farmer sells this "improved" land to an interested buyer, often a wealthier, established landowner, and moves on to the next forest area. This objective is at once culturally and economically motivated. The image of the cattle rancher as an aristocrat and a holder of high social status is a powerful motive for poor farmers.
Cattle ranchers are by definition wealthy; the possession of a large herd and a large farm constitutes a level of capital holdings beyond that of the average farmer. Cattle ranching is less physically demanding than farming, since labour requirements are relatively low. In economic terms, returns to capital land and animals are relatively low, while to labour are quite high. Over time, the tradition of land clearance has created what Heckadon Heckadon Moreno a has termed the "culture of pastures," incorporating wealth and status objectives in a broad cultural framework.
A man's capacity to clear land has become a cultural validation of personal worth and a motivation independent of the economic aspects of the process. The strength of these cultural motivations has tended to maintain the "culture of pastures" life-style and activities, even beyond the limits of their economic adaptiveness. While Heckadon's formulation specifically describes the farmers of Panama, reflections of this "culture of pastures" mentality can be seen throughout Central America.
In some cases, land clearance by poor farmers for ultimate use by wealthier land users is undertaken on a contractual basis. Landless farmers are offered the use of forest land with the requirement that they use it for a few years and return it to the owner with pasture sown. In areas of poor soils, this arrangement is attractive to poor farmers, since the quality of land does not permit the establishment of permanent farms in any case; the farmers prefer to use land for only the first few years after forest clearance, and pasture can be established along with the last grain crops.
This pattern is widely reported throughout Latin America Partridge In other cases, wealthy landowners may find themselves constrained by environmental protection legislation which limits land clearance.
Poor farmers are exempt under certain legislation, in the belief that prohibiting their land clearing would deny them a livelihood as agriculturalists, or that lumber harvesting on a small scale is for personal rather than commercial use. Lenience in the application of land clearance legislation may also be a question of enforcement pragmatics; it would be virtually impossible to control all tree clearance by small farmers, and rather than become involved in an acrimonious, selective enforcement schedule, environmental agencies may simply focus on larger landholders.
To avoid legal constraints, wealthy land users may indirectly "invite" small farmers onto their land by letting it be known that they will not eject farmers from forest areas; small farmers are expected to clear land, use it for subsistence agriculture for several years, and finally abandon it preferably with pasture sown to the legal landowner. Another variation is for logging operations to invite in small farmers, who fell and prepare trees within logging concessions while opening land to farm.
Since land in frontier areas may be legally restricted either by prior ownership or by environmental legislation, land clearance may bring with it certain risks.
The practice of transferring "title" from the land clearer to a secondary owner deflects some risk by permitting the owner to truthfully state that he or she is not responsible for any illegal clearing and that money was transferred in good faith that the previous "owner" had made proper legal arragements.
The pattern of Hispanic land settlement in Central America closely follows ecological patterns. Colonizing populations have first occupied the drier and more temperate zones, moving into the most humid regions only as a last resort see maps 1 and 2. The occupation of the humid regions has brought along with it a series of problems, ranging from the need to identify appropriate crops to the development of human support systems for health and transportation which could withstand the special problems of the high humidity.
This relatively small area has been repeatedly cited as an example of climatic and life-form diversity for its unique geographical situation see esp. Janzen Its position between the Pacific and Caribbean weather systems, combined with the attitudinal effects of the central mountain chain, create a broad range of climatic zones. In addition to the climate diversity, Central America's role as a land bridge between two major continents has resulted in a concentration of species seldom seen in such a small area.
The richness of species and climatic diversity has created a mosaic of ecological communities, which has been catalogued by Holdridge in his work on life-zone ecology. David Meyer examines a sugarcane stalk in Belize. Belize portrays traits of a rimland state, complete with plantation agriculture and African influence.
Photo by R. At the northern end of Central America is the former British colony of Belize, which in gained independence in Belize borders the Caribbean Sea and has a hot, tropical type A climate.
It is small in size—about the size of El Salvador—and in population, with only about three hundred thousand people. It has the longest coral reef in the Western Hemisphere and has been promoting ecotourism as a means of economic development to capitalize on this aspect. After hurricanes ravaged the coastal Belize City, the country shifted its capital forty-five miles inland to Belmopan as a protective measure.
Belmopan is a small, centrally located city with only about ten thousand people. During the s, the region of Panama was part of South America and was controlled by colonial Colombia, which was formerly colonized by Spain.
To travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, ships had to sail around the southern tip of South America, which was time consuming and difficult to negotiate in some places due to ocean currents.
France made an agreement with Colombia to purchase a strip of land in Panama ten miles wide and about fifty miles long to build a canal. The tropical climate and swampy terrain, however, quickly defeated the French workers with malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases. In the United States, there was an increasing need to shorten the shipping distance between California and New York.
Before the United States took over the canal project after the French abandoned it, Panama was separated from Colombia in a brief civil war and declared independent in Understanding the problems that the French had encountered, the United States first sent civil engineers and medical professionals to Panama to drain the swamps and apply tons of chemicals such as the insecticide DDT to eradicate the mosquito population.
These chemicals were later found to be toxic to humans but worked well in eliminating the mosquito problem. The Panama Canal was finally completed by the United States and opened for business in after tremendous difficulties had been overcome.
About 14 percent of the population of Panama has West Indian ancestry, and many of the laborers were of African descent. The difference in ethnicity caused an early layering of society, with those from the Caribbean finding themselves at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Almost fifteen thousand vessels pass through the Panama Canal every year.
The Panama Canal is a marvel of engineering. This large inland lake provides a freshwater channel extending most of the way across the Isthmus of Panama. Locks raise and lower ships from sea level to the eighty-five-foot water level of the canal and the lake. As ships travel through the locks, the fresh water is eventually emptied into the sea. The canal channel has to be dredged periodically to keep it from silting in.
In recent years, deforestation has reduced the number of trees around the lake, resulting in more silt entering the lake bed. A program to replant trees has been implemented to secure the lake and restore the natural conditions. Recently, the politics of the Panama Canal have become more of an issue than the operation of the canal itself. Under this agreement, both the Panama Canal Zone and the actual canal were to be returned to Panama by the end of Many Americans opposed the return of the canal to Panama.
President Ronald Reagan campaigned on this position. The United States had military installations in the Canal Zone and had used this area as a training ground for the Vietnam War and other military missions. He was an important figure, helping with the US war against Nicaragua and generally serving US interests in the region in spite of the fact he was a known drug dealer.
In May , Noriega was elected president of Panama and became less supportive of US interests in the region. He was sentenced to forty years in a US prison for drug trafficking and held as a political prisoner. The Panama Canal Zone was an excellent geographical location for US military operations because it provided an excellent base to monitor military activity in South America.
US military planes could fly from US bases to Panama without refueling, and the planes could then fly out of Panama to monitor activity in South America. International law ruled that the Canal Zone was still sovereign Panamanian territory. The US military claimed the reason for remaining in the Canal Zone was to provide security for the canal.
The question arises, does the small country of Panama, with only about three million people, have the resources to manage and maintain the canal operations? To assist in economic development, Panama has established a free-trade zone next to the canal to entice international commerce. Originally established in , the free-trade zone has become one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Panama City has also become a hub of international banking with the dubious claim of being a main money-laundering center for Colombian drug money. Panama is striving to be a main economic center for the region, which would advance economic globalization and trade for Panama.
Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Chapter 5: Middle America. Search for:. Outline the various ways in which the United States has affected the region. Explain the similarities and the differences among the Central American republics. Understand how the Panama Canal came to be constructed and what role the United States has played in Panama. Tierra caliente hot land : Sea level to 2, feet Tierra templada temperate land : 2, to 6, feet Tierra fria cold land : 6, to 12, feet Tierra helada frozen land : 12, to 15, feet Tierra nevada snowy land : Above 15, feet Figure 5.
Tierra Caliente Hot Land : Sea Level to 2, Feet From sea level to 2, feet are the humid tropical lowlands found on the coastal plains. Tierra Templada Temperate Land : 2, to 6, Feet From 2, to 6, feet is a zone with cooler temperatures than at sea level.
European Colonialism Amerindian groups dominated Central America before the European colonial powers arrived. People and Population About 50 percent of the people of Central America live in rural areas, and because the economy is agriculturally based, family size has traditionally been large. Expanding corporate-controlled free trade makes the global south more dependent on the global north, and the corporations reap the profits. CAFTA promotes corporate colonialism or neocolonialism. The small countries of Central America cannot compete with large US corporations, which pressure and influence political systems to provide advantages and opportunities to exploit the smaller, weaker nations of Central America.
CAFTA forces small developing countries with no chance of competing successfully against the United States to open their markets to powerful US corporations. CAFTA leads to further privatization of social services, decreases public access to basic services, and gives corporations more money and control.
CAFTA forces competition for the lowest wages and lowest production costs, which drives wages down in the United States and keeps them down throughout Central America while at the same time providing huge profits to multinational corporations. The Republics: Diverse Political Geography Central American countries might share similar climate patterns, but they do not share similar political or economic dynamics.
Guatemala Figure 5. El Salvador In the coffee republic of El Salvador, the civil war of —92 was fought between the government-backed wealthy land-owning elite and the peasants who worked the land and lived in poverty. Nicaragua At the same time that civil wars were going on in Guatemala and El Salvador, there was conflict in Nicaragua.
Honduras Honduras has not experienced civil war, even though it is located in the midst of three troubled neighbors. Costa Rica If there is a bright spot in Central America, it is the democratic and peaceful Costa Rica, which does not have an army. Belize Figure 5. Panama and the Panama Canal During the s, the region of Panama was part of South America and was controlled by colonial Colombia, which was formerly colonized by Spain. Show source. Download for free You need to log in to download this statistic Register for free Already a member?
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