Forest soil conservation in central Mexico: An interdisciplinary assessment ★

An inter-disciplinary assessment of the conservation practices on forest soils in Mexico was conducted (i) to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of soil quality indicators and (ii) to use social indicators of their acceptance and execution; such information would be a means of improving the design and implementation of public policy. After four years of soil conservation measures in areas under common ownership, involving ditches, individual terraces or arrangement of plant material, soil indicators such as bulk density, total carbon, total nitrogen and pH in nine sites and 54 plots showed deficiencies in soil properties involved in productivity and hydrological regulation, in comparison with the control groups. The results suggest that the conservation practices are not improving any of these functions. Social indicators revealed that the soil conservation program only encourages participation through economic stimulus without considering that non-financial interest can play an important role, then the rate of adoption and replication of these measures is low. These results led us to make some suggestion with policy implications such as taking into account landscape heterogeneity and social complexity to define conservation actions; considering strengthening conservation attitudes among ejidatarios and also to assess the conservation program through results that have measured the impact of the practices on the recovery of soil quality. Interdisciplinary approaches to understand attitudes for soil conservation are a prerequisite in future research.

► We assess soil conservation practices through soil and social indicators in Mexico.
► Soil conservation practices do not improve soil quality indicators.
► Our results lead us to propose new assumptions to soil conservation program.
► Subsidy is the most important incentive to realize soil conservation practices.