Presentation: 

Mexico, and particularly Oaxaca, present a unique case in which much of the nation’s forests were placed as commons in the hands of communities, who, with state support and their own entrepreneurial vigor, created community forest enterprises (CFEs). David Barton Bray, who has spent more than thirty years engaged with and researching Mexican community forestry, shows that this reform has transformed forest management in that country at a scale and level of maturity unmatched anywhere else in the world.

Presenter: 

David Barton Bray is a professor in the Earth and Environment Department at Florida International University. He received his PhD from Brown University in 1983. From 1986 to 1997 he was foundation representative with the Inter-American Foundation, and, prior to that, he taught at Tulane University from 1983 to 1986. He has received research funding from the Fulbright Program, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is the lead editor of the book, The Community Forests of Mexico and is widely published in academic journals and in popular outlets such as the New York Times and the Miami Herald.