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Resource management and fertility in Mexico’s Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve: Campos, cash, and contraception in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen

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Abstract

This case study examines the link between marine resource management, and the universal contraceptive use among married couples in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen, located in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Several reasons appear to contribute to small desired and actual family sizes. Some of these include a medical clinic staff effective in promoting family planning, cooperative and private resource ownership, changing cultural attitudes, geographical limitations to population and economic growth, and a desire to conserve the environment for aesthetic and economic motives. Lastly, families desired to preserve a sustained balance between benefiting from lobster harvests today and safeguarding this marine resource for their children in the future.

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Notes

  1. The enforcement of these regulations challenges the assumption of Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons model that users of commonly held resources will not self-regulate absent state policy (Hardin 1968).

  2. As is typical of ejidal systems, Punta Alleños do not own their land, they hold life-long use rights that can be transferred to sons. But land outside the town is privately owned—much of it by a few of the village’s founding families.

  3. Population pressure frequently compromises conservation in Latin American Protected Areas. Donovan (1994) suggests that high rates of natural increase among locals has accelerated deforestation rates to approximately 5% per annum in Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park. Wells and Brandon (1992) found that population growth exacerbated deforestation in core areas of the Mexican Monarch Butterfly Overwintering Reserves. Similarly, Herlihy (1985) documented how continued high fertility is straining the environment of Panama’s Chocó Indians.

  4. Studies that showed a positive relationship between land security and fertility in India include: Driver (1963); and Singh (1986).

  5. For a more in-depth critique, see Thomas (1991).

  6. Twelve is employed as the first year of childbearing potential since some girls under the age of 15 have been pregnant in Punta Allen, as is typical for rural areas in Mexico.

  7. There is substantial evidence in the Public Health and Communications literature that supports the effectiveness of mass media campaigns on changing fertility behavior (See Bankole et al. 1996; Westoff et al. 1996; De Jong and Winsten 1996; Piotrow et al. 1994.)

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to the Tinker and Mellon Foundations and the University of North Carolina (UNC) Institute of Latin American Studies for supporting this research. I sincerely thank my informants for giving their time for interviews, and to the entire community of Punta Allen for their genuine warmth, honesty, and trust. The NGO Amigos de Sian Ka’an deserves mention as well for supporting my research in the Punta Allen. I would also like to extend my profoundest gratitude to colleagues at the Carolina Population Center and UNC Department of Geography, particularly Tom Whitmore for his insightful and detailed comments on prior drafts of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Geography, UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), 3611 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106-4060, USA

    David L. Carr

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Carr, D.L. Resource management and fertility in Mexico’s Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve: Campos, cash, and contraception in the lobster-fishing village of Punta Allen. Popul Environ 29, 83–101 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-008-0062-0

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