Are the areas known as Natural Protected Areas an efficient instrument of environmental policy in México for environmental governance, biodiversity conservation and generation of models of sustainable development for the local population? The collective work attempts to respond this question from different analytical perspectives by addressing the situation of several biosphere reserves in the state of Chiapas.

The book “Paradoxes of protected lands in Chiapas” analyzes three biosphere reserves in the state: La Sepultura, Montes Azules and Lacantún, in terms of how the lack of awareness of the political dimension generates paradoxes and counter-productive effects in environmental management, and it points to the need of fostering integral processes of democratic empowerment of the local population as an essential condition to reach true sustainable development.

The research project stems from the following hypothesis: the conditions of civic responsibility deficit and the corresponding prevailing environmental policy, which is authoritarian and inconsistent with the rule of law, derived from the limitations of our democracy, limit the conservation of natural resources, their sustainable management, and worsen the inequality suffered by the population in the reserves analyzed; at the same time, the democratization processes of the government and citizenry, developed through social dialogue between environmental authorities and the local population, constitute the safest means to achieve a policy that is environmentally and socially sustainable.

In the first chapter, Juana Cruz Morales makes a deep theoretical systematization of environmental democracy, taking up factors such as processes of deterritorialization, the role of education and the importance of values in the behavior of actors. In the second, Tim Trench inquires as to whether the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, CONANP) has managed to work jointly with the local population to fulfill the objectives of conservation and sustainability of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.

The third chapter, elaborated by Leticia Durand and Fernanda Figueroa, addresses the case of the influence of the conservation discourse in the history and social dynamics of Nueva Palestina, one of the sub-communities of the Lacandon community, whose activities impact the Montes Azules Reserve. In the fourth and fifth chapters, María del Carmen Legorreta and Conrado Márquez suggest that the use of legal instruments in the Lacandon community has been anti-democratic and inefficient, product of the voluntary or involuntary lack of consideration of the dimension of power and politics that the laws entail, and the lack of awareness of the social and territorial situation.

The book attempts to contribute to the debate regarding socioenvironmental policies, sustainable development and conservation models, which have predominantly favored the establishment of protected natural areas. However, a discussion around the capitalization of nature is lacking, which helps to explain the role of the State, the scarce results and the lack of understanding of the communities in natural protected areas.