Parables of chapultepec: Urban parks, national landscapes, and contradictory conservation in modern Mexico

Perhaps the oldest nature preserve in the Americas, the verdant oasis of Chapultepec Park, lies within the depths of Mexico City, a metropolis so large it literally chokes on itself. The 850 hectares of arboreal integrity reach outward to the skyscrapers and sinewy highways that grasp its foliage. The park provides one of a few areas where birdsongs drown out taxi horns and squirrels scamper across branches of ancient ahuehuetes and fast-growing eucalyptus trees.1 The park is not wild by any definition, yet the sculpted lakes, meandering paths, and sprawling lawns invite visitors to rest and re - flect, shrouded by nature that is scarce elsewhere in the city. And visit they do. Paddleboats, roller coasters, and horse-mounted security guards move through crowds of competitive bicyclists, amorous teenagers, and gleeful toddlers. Both a destination and a source of the city's happenings, the park begins traditional parade routes and bridges centuries of cultural traditions and natural abundance, evident in King Nezahualcóyotl's baths, the prominent Chapultepec Castle, the sitting president's residence, the museum of anthropology (and national history, modern art, and more), and a zoo full of animals ranging from native axolotl salamanders to exotic zebras. Nowhere else can visitors sample the country's past and present, nature and culture with such ease. As it surrounds the park, the city provides a counterpoint brimming with environmental tragedies. From below the ground up past the rooftops, the tangle of humanity and lifeless construction evokes sublime chaos-a topography at once drawing in and repulsing observers. Roads, pipes, and bridges constantly shift and tear, with the sagging earth below causing potholes, leaks, and explosions. In earthquakes, shoddily constructed buildings shake and implode, while the subway and colonial churches prove their resilience. Through a perpetual process of collapse and renewal, the urban landscape strips down weakened edifices and builds up anew, like a forest floor. The city ecosystem is hardly organic, yet it pulses with life and cycles through opportunity and catastrophe intimately connected to its rural surroundings. Hundreds of rural migrants arrive daily, pushed into the city by depleted soils and depressed agricultural prices, augmenting the collective tally of resource use. And the list of paradoxes mounts. The existence of a naturalized oasis such as Chapultepec inside the archetypal uncontrolled urban environment reveals the contradictions of a larger national relationship with, and fascination for, nature. Chapultepec presents a set of parables for the broader history of nature conservation in modern Mexico. Orderly nature in the beloved park depicts the triumph of reason over the unruly and delirious culture of Mexico City. In the same way, the development of nature protection on a national scale drew upon modern science as it expressed the nation's timeless and organic existence. As a longstanding precedent for valuing natural spaces, considering Chapultepec within the nationwide array of parks illuminates how domestic and foreign notions of nature contributed to making parks hubs of state power. But Chapultepec further reveals that parks are more than political constructions; they reflect and shape cultural trends in a dynamic society. Chapultepec and an extensive network of national protected areas exist and function as hybrid landscapes sustained by the societal changes that alternatively reinvigorate and compromise their ecological integrity. Parks have histories that tell us more about the societies that created them than of the natures they enclose. This chapter examines the history of Mexican parks to offer some explanations for their existence. Over the course of the twentieth century, the Mexican government created nearly two hundred national parks, nature reserves, and protected natural areas covering almost 10 percent of the federal territory.4 They ranged from urban parks of a few hectares to vast marine reserves encompassing millions of hectares. Much of this conservation captured a spectacular range of nature valued differently over time by multiple, and sometimes competing, constituencies. The nation's territory spans fifteen latitudinal degrees from desert to tropical forest and includes complex topography reaching from dry islands in the Sea of Cortés to glaciated alpine peaks above 5,600 meters. The corresponding variety of plants and animals is immense: more than 65,000 species have been described and over 200,000 are thought to exist. They range from charismatic jaguars to monarch butterflies, from mysterious boojum trees to stately cypress.5 When judged solely on the diversity of habitats, few nations can boast as much value, and Mexico belongs in an esteemed group of nations termed "mega - diverse" by biologists. Although impressive, neither the size nor the content of this network of protected areas constitutes its most remarkable feature. Instead, the chronology of actions taken to create protected areas demonstrates that nature protection is not a feat reserved for so-called developed countries. Mexican conservation history shows us that a nation struggling with social revolution, haphazard industrialization, and rural-to-urban migration (among other challenges) created a coherent (yet at times contradictory) and resilient conservation system with an ability to accommodate conflicting values. The attributes of Mexican conservation paralleled the contours of its changing political economy, involved a commitment to modernization, and fostered institutional overlaps in park administration. Through national parks, bio - sphere reserves, and even the continual rejuvenation of Chapultepec, federal administrators strove to harmonize their commitment to expanding economic development with a countervailing tendency to conserve the natural world. These interlocked imperatives-to produce and conserve-are not unique to Mexico, but the particular features of their relationship there help to round out global debates over nature conservation and its meaning.