Abstract EN:

The henequen-growing district of yucatan covers an area of 5060 square miles in the north-western part of the province. It is predominantly devoted to the cultivation of the plant by 44 000 maya indians, and has a reputation for social homoqeneity. The district, however, is now coming apart under the strains of an economic crisis which first hit the market for natural fibres in the 1960s and is now posing a threat to the plantation farming of that agave. Know as a sisal in international circles. Our interest was in the decline in the exclusive production of the natural fibre and in the changes which have come about in land usage as a result of this decline, whose effects on production, society, and nature were also studied. Two main areas were identified - the eastern area, traditionally given over to the exclusive production of the fibre and western area with a tendency to the commercial production of citrus fruit and market-garden vegetables. These areas are only two of the four identified in our characterization of the natural physical environment. The impact on the natural environment of the two separate farming techniques involved was measured by the degree of regeneration of the forest. We noticed an impact of another kind : the salinity of underground water is increased by the over-pumping of water for market-garden produce on the north coast of the district.