Migration, Remittances, and Forest Cover Change in Rural Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico

Arild Angelsen, Mariel Aguilar-Støen, John Herbert Ainembabazi, Edwin Castellanos and Matthew Taylor
Additional contact information
Arild Angelsen: School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway
Mariel Aguilar-Støen: Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1116, Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway
John Herbert Ainembabazi: African Development Bank (AfDB), Microeconomic, Institutional & Development Impact Division, Abidjan 01, Ivory Coast
Edwin Castellanos: Centro de Estudios Ambientales y Biodiversidad, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala 01015, Guatemala
Matthew Taylor: Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Denver, Boettcher Center West, 2050 E. Iliff Ave. Denver, CO 80208, USA

Land, 2020, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-23

Abstract: This article investigates how migration and remittances affect forest cover in eight rural communities in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico. Based on household surveys and remote sensing data, we found little evidence to support the widespread claim that migration takes pressure off forests. In the Chiapas sites, we observed no significant changes in forest cover since 1990, while in the Guatemalan sites, migration may have increased demand for agricultural land, leading to an average annual forest loss of 0.73% during the first decade of the millennium. We suggest that when attractive opportunities exist to invest in agriculture and land expansion, remittances and returnee savings provide fresh capital that is likely to increase pressure on forests. Our study also has implications for the understanding of migration flows; in particular, migration has not implied an exodus out of agriculture for the remaining household members nor for the returning migrants. On the contrary, returning migrants are more likely to be involved in farming activities after their return than they were before leaving.

Keywords: remittances; forest transition; agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:9:y:2020:i:3:p:88-:d:333485

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