Trade-off between market and ecosystem services drives settlement decisions among smallholder ranchers in Baja California Sur, Mexico

AbstractWhile smallholder food producers increasingly depend on goods and services provided by distant markets, they are still constrained by their local ecology, as their rural communities often lack many of the infrastructural advantages of urban centers. Navigating the costs and benefits of market and ecosystem services is, as a consequence, crucial to their livelihoods and overall well-being. Here, we explore one aspect of that market –ecology trade-off: its effect on the residential choice behavior of ranchers living in the arid Sierra de la Giganta Mountains along the eastern spine of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. We rely on two generalized linear models (GLMs), a binomial GLM of the locations of occupied and aband oned ranches and a Poisson GLM of population size at occupied ranches. Our proxies for market integration and ecosystem services are travel time estimates to surficial springs and distant cities. By using these travel time estimates, we enhance the ethnographic study of residential choice behavior i n smallholder systems by drawing on key innovations from urban and economic geography. Our models show that ranch clusters are more likely to be abandoned the farther they are from surficial springs, and occupied ranch clusters have larger populations the closer they are to markets. This has importa nt consequences for the ecological resilience of this ranching community, particularly in the context of climate-induced drought, which may lead to ranchi...
Source: Sustainability Science - Category: Science Source Type: research