Mathews examines the history and political implications of forestry's dessication theory in indigenous communities of Oaxaca, Mexico. Dessication theory states that deforestation causes rainfall declines, reduces stream flow in the dry season and causes erosion and floods. Using semi-structured interviews, field notes and archival and biological data, Mathews explores the role this theory has played in the experiences of community-based forestry in two Zapotec villages internationally recognized for sustainable mangament. Drawing on concepts from science and technology studies, environmental politics and environmental anthropology, he explores the ways that authoritative knowledge from science and the state is accepted or contested by popular and local audiences. Understanding the foundation of popular and political power commanded by different types of knowledge is important for the design of local intervention schemes and public policies for environmental action.

Mathews maps the twists and turns of dessication theory's social and scientific currency – its centuries-long and present-day acceptance by lay people around the world; its official promotion in the 1930s and subsequent rejection in the 1940s by Mexican state scientists and policy makers; and since the 1990s, a steadfast faith in it held by local Zapotecs as well as Mexico's urban public and environmentalist contingent. Current hydrological studies that discredit dessication theory are cited and its vague nature is identified as a characteristic enabling its appeal to different people at different points in time.

Referencing a classic ethnography from 1949, Mathews makes a connection between Zapotec people's traditional supernatural explanations and their present day technical understandings about forests and water supplies. He posits that their spiritual beliefs contributed to a cultural predisposition for reliance on what he frames as outdated science. However, today this spirituality is largely forgotten and Zapotec forestry technicians and community members claim popular scientific reasons for their conservation measures. The community has rejected the services of non-local forestry experts who contradicted dessication theory tenets, and it has chosen to conserve ample forested land specifically to protect water supplies.

Anti-deforestation struggles are a commonality that has facilitated powerful discursive and institutional alliances between rural communities, city people and environmental NGOs. Interview data in the city of Oaxaca shows how urban activists have co-opted rural concern about logging and watershed health and anachronistically refer to indigenous spiritual beliefs in their fight against environmental degradation and climate change. This is part of what Mathews terms as translation and mistranslation of local concerns by conservationists who try appeal to wider urban audiences and support networks. This “unlikely alliance” of actors has protested state- and industry-sponsored logging and succeeded in implementing alternative sustainable forest uses.

Following the article are comments by 6 other researchers, some of whom Mathews referenced in this work. He categorizes their criticism into four main points and responds to each: (1) translation/mistranslation, (2) the empirical validity of desiccation theory, (3) states and communities and (4) the power of publics.

Prepared by Megan Glore