Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent: Culture, Conservation, and the State in Mexico

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HAENN, NORA. Fields of power, forests of discontent: culture, conservation, and the state in Mexico. xvi, 229 pp., maps, tables, illus., figs, bibliogr. Tucson: Univ. Arizona Press, 2005. $45.00 (cloth)

The subject of this engrossing book is a formerly active programme in agrarian folk communities that had dual goals of forest conservation and sustainable development. Its author, an anthropologist, follows the early history of a forest reserve established in 1989 in southeastern Campeche state, Mexico, detailing personalities amid economic and political cross-currents. Promoted originally as a park to preserve the enormous Maya archaeological site of Calakmul, the expanded tract's ultimate establishment was as the Campeche Biosphere Reserve covering both the ancient …