Scholars, especially those located in Latin America, argue for a new rurality, one that entails changed rural-urban relations and decreasing reliance by rural residents on small-scale farming. Based on an examination of the impacts of three subsidy programs aimed at residents living near Mexico’s Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, I suggest these changes reinforce a continued rural poverty. The programs include a series of “conservation-development” initiatives whose architects hoped would decrease the pressure slash-and-burn farmers placed on area forests. In addition, residents of this area participated in agricultural and school subsidies. I compare the relative impact of all these programs on household incomes and consider both the opportunities for social capital these programs represented and their role in the purported “new rurality.”

people and parks, PROCAMPO, PRONASOL, environmentalism