The environmental regime for climate change and the effects of climatic variability on maya livelihoods in Quintana Roo, Mexico

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Climatic variability is affecting rural and indigenous agricultural rainfed systems worldwide. This study aims (a) to determine how the national environmental regime for climate change operates in Quintana Roo, including the Maya Zone; (b) to assess the effects of climatic variability upon Maya livelihoods dependent on agricultural and forestry systems; and (c) to determine whether any of these effects of climatic variability on livelihoods are reflected in public policies at national and state levels. The study used a transdisciplinary approach combining natural and social science theory but also scientific and indigenous knowledge. Our results show that, in Mexico, the national regime for climate change is strongly linked to efforts at the global scale, but weakly linked to those at the local scale. Moreover, it was found that Maya rainfed agricultural and forestry systems are impacted to different degrees by droughts, extreme rains, and hurricanes, with slash-and-burn agriculture (milpa) being highly impacted by all three events. This situation not only affects the food security of the Maya people but also their ancestral cultural practices and indigenous knowledge. Moreover, 20-30% of the interviewees in this study seek alternative employment outside their communities as a coping strategy whenever meteorological events critically affect their livelihoods. The results of the review of both national (PECC) and the state-level (PEACCQROO) programs for climate change show that they currently fail to include specific lines of action on adaptation and mitigation strategies to cope with the effects of climate change on agricultural rainfed systems or its consequences for the rural Maya people. eng