Development initiatives focused on the improvement of the quality of life in Mexicoâs rural communities have failed to deliver the promised benefits to the people. While there are some rare exceptions, in most rural communities the resource base continues to deteriorate.

Chihuahua, Mexico has 5.1 million hectares of forested area that occupies 27 percent of the stateâs total area. During historical development, Chihuahuaâs forests typically were harvested by private enterprises and, rarely, by ejidos and communities. Over time, ejido communities often included both ejidatarios, with land use rights, and avecindados, those who live in the community
but do not exercise land rights and cannot participate in harvesting forest resources as owners but they can just participate as workers. Thus,  neither ejidos nor their communities have obtained the major benefits from forest resources. However, they now demand to participate actively in the productive process to obtain more benefits.

This research study focused on strategic planning for sustainable community forestry in Chihuahua, Mexico. The research focused on two forest ejidos in the Sierra Tarahumara: Basihuare and Cusarare.  We hypothesized that Basihuare (the intervention community) would have more positive and statistically significant changes in attitudes toward community
development than Cusarare (the control community). Our objectives were: 1) to assess the current forest resource management in both communities, 2) to conduct participative strategic planning methodology (Search Conference) for forest-based community development to achieve a greater awareness of development needs, positive attitude change, and to design a strategic action plan for a future community, and 3) to assess the attitudinal and perceptual impact of the strategic planning intervention (SPI) of local people toward community development.

A static group comparison was conducted in this study. Comparisons were carried out between two ejidos before and after conducting the SPI to measure the changes in attitudes The results showed that: 1) ethnographic interviews were a valuable complement to and cross-check on the participatory approaches to obtaining views from the community members about their community forest resource management, and 2) the SPI achieved  a greater awareness of development needs and created more positive attitudes and perceptions about community development (Basihuare). As a result, it is possible to note that SPI significantly changed the respondentsâ attitudes and perceptions in intervention community. Statistically, there were significant differences in attitude changes in people that participated in the SPI (Basihuare) compared to people who did not (Cusarare).

Additionally, the planning conference helped the Basihuare community to design its own strategic action plan for future development.  The community not only developed its own strategic action plan but also, because of the participative and democratic process they used, developed community plans. In the research, even though Basihuare lacked financial resources for investment, profits from its sawmill,  and resource planning, local people did not display negative attitudes toward community development in the future. If resources are available, they are motivated and interested in implementing the action plans for their community. The results confirm the initial hypothesis and suggest that the study can serve as a model for the application of the Open Systems approach to the development of sustainable community forestry for the Sierra Tarahumara and elsewhere. The community is an important, though often neglected, component for achieving sustainability of natural resources management.

Keywords: forestry, sustainability, indigenous development, ejidos; Mexico