Neoliberal conservation and the division between nature and culture: Payments for environmental services disrupt food sovereignty in an indigenous community of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Committing indigenous communal lands under market-based conservation paradigms may cause community-level resource-based conflict, affecting food sovereignty and ecological knowledge transmission. We assessed impacts of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) on local diets, agriculture, hunting and livelihoods, in a Chinantec community of southern Mexico. The community placed 47.6% (2,822 ha) of their lands under PES in 2004-2009, receiving $769,245 USD. Villagers attribute decreased meat consumption, crop yields and cultivable area to the conservation policies. Agreeing to measures that restrict use of ancestral agricultural land and prohibit hunting has led to greater external food dependency destabilizing food security. Strict preservation measures under the guise of conservation could cause losses of agrobiodiversity, dietary diversity, hunting skills and environmental knowledge. We suggest that “constructions of nature” by neoliberal conservation initiatives rely on divisions between nature and culture, not grasping complex ways people interact with the landbase they rely on for food, social and spiritual needs.