Parceling the Rainforest: How Cabécar Communities Are Reshaping Forest Tenure Dynamics in Costa Rica’s Largest Indigenous Territory

Keywords: Central America, Costa Rica, indigenous, land tenure, deforestation, saneamiento
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 16

Abstract

Since the mid-1980s formally recognized indigenous territories have proliferated in Latin America as governments have sought to comply with international agreements concerning tenure security, land use rights, and self-determination for indigenous communities while curbing deforestation. Geographers have contributed valuable case studies documenting how formalization of land tenure impacts the exclusionary rights of indigenous communities and whether indigenous territories are effective spatial mechanisms for avoiding deforestation. However, relatively few studies discuss the nested de facto tenure practices and their implications for forest cover inside the de jure boundaries of common-property indigenous territories. This presentation blends ethnographic fieldwork from Chirripó Reserve—the largest indigenous territory in Costa Rica—with photographic and cartographic evidence illustrating 1) how indigenous Cabécar communities are parceling common-property rainforest land into a de facto cadastral registry beneath the territorial umbrella of Chirripó Reserve, and 2) that land privatization has not sparked deforestation in Chirripó Reserve.