Disaster in the Woods: Mistletoe Plagues and Community Responses in Revolutionary Mexico

What ways do communities organize themselves to confront perceived natural disasters?  How do local networks and associations create resiliency that complements or challenges the agendas of federal governments?  To interrogate these questions, this paper examines the environmental disaster described as a “plague of mistletoe” that erupted in the forests simultaneously claimed by peasant families and federal foresters in the lands of Malinche National Park in central Mexico in the 1930s.  The spread of this woodland parasite weakened the trees and compromised the health of their resin and quality of their wood, features residents desired.  They also left an unsightly forest that bothered foresters looking to plan for a vibrant national park with a robust woodland aesthetic.  Why the plague spread and became a problem depended greatly on who interpreted the disaster and how they viewed its perpetuation.

The slow moving but persistent mistletoe disaster occurred at a critical time in environmental policy, in the midst of the social reforms of President Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940.  By nationalizing land, water, and forests, federal politicians attempted to control both the natural world and the rural dwellers residing on it but local residents were not passive recipients of the encroaching state.  Local communities maintained strong opinions about resource management and they used these opinions to contest and change federal policies including park boundaries. The favorable position of peasants within the political sphere constrained zealous reformers from dispossessing peasants of their property.  A seemingly “natural” disaster, like mistletoe´s spread, created a political opening where scientific experts could prescribe how a forest’s use should more properly be managed as a critique of the stewardship of local communities.  The contestation over these lands reflects the conjunction of multiple constituencies and a perceived disaster.