Mexico - Context and Land Governance

^{Photo: Elias Almaguer/Unsplash}

Mexico is home to just over 130 million people [2]. Of these, more than 9 million live in the capital, Mexico City [3]. According to 2020 data, 21% of the population lives in rural communities [4]. 15.1% (about 17 million people) of the population are indigenous peoples, who enrich Mexican culture with up to 68 different languages [5].

One of the most famous episodes in Mexican history, the Mexican Revolution, led in the south of the country by Emiliana Zapata and in the north by Pancho Villa, took place partly under the slogan of agrarian struggle and land distribution. The result was the current proliferation of ejidos and agrarian communities-both forms of communal land ownership-that continue to significantly shape land administration in Mexico today.

_{Teotihuacán Municipality, State of Mexico, Mexico. Photo: Anton Lukin (Unsplash License)}

Land legislation and regulations

The 1917 Constitution - last amended in 2021 - contains detailed provisions on land and property in Mexico in its Article 27 [6]. Originally, ownership of land and water within the national territory belongs to the nation, which has the right to transfer the domain to private individuals, making it private property. Expropriation is allowed as long as it is in the public interest and compensation is provided. The same article also establishes the limits of private property when it emphasizes that the nation has the right at all times to impose modalities on private property in the public interest and to regulate the use of natural resources that are eligible for appropriation for social benefit. Social benefit is understood to mean the equitable distribution of public wealth, care for its preservation, the achievement of balanced development of the country, and the improvement of the living conditions of the entire population. Among the possible measures that can be taken in this sense are the division of large estates, which is prohibited by the Constitution, and the organization and collective exploitation of ejidos and communities under the Regulatory Law.

Under the Constitution, corporations may own land dedicated to agricultural, livestock, or forestry activities that is more than twenty-five times the size of a small property.

The Constitution also recognizes the legal personality of ejidos and agrarian communities, protects their ownership of land, and regulates the use of land, forests, and water in accordance with the Agrarian Law. The 1992 Agrarian Law recognizes the ejidos as owners of the land that has been granted to them or that they have otherwise acquired (Art. 9). It also recognizes the power of the ejido assemblies - the highest authority and decision-making body for the internal organization of the ejido, composed of all ejidatarios or comuneros - to decide on collective use of the ejido land, if so decided by the assembly (Art. 11). According to the law, the ejido assembly can also decide on the use of the communal land, the change of destination of this land, the change of ownership, and the division of the land into private property. In addition, the Agrarian Law grants the ejidal assemblies the power to authorize the ejidatarios to change the ownership of parcels of land, such as having the ejidatarios assume full ownership of the demarcated parcels assigned to them (Art. 81). Under the law, private landowners may also decide to become ejidatarios (Art. 90) and communal landowners may decide to become ejidatarios (Art. 104).

However, some authors point out that the end of the agrarian reform process was accompanied by the modification of the property system in ways that are not reflected in legislation or in governmental and legal mechanisms [7]. For example, the ejidos and agrarian communities changed in ways that distanced them from their origin as forms of social property: the ejido was transformed into a modality of private property and the agrarian community into a model of property in itself [8].

Land ownership and tenure

In Mexico, there are different types of land ownership: individual private property, also called small property; ejidosand agrarian communities, both of which are communally owned and also called social properties or agricultural units; baldíos, which are lands without formal ownership; and national lands, which are owned by the state [9]. Baldíos and national lands are unseizable and non-transferable (Agrarian Law, Art. 158).

According to the Constitution, the extension of small property is limited to a maximum of one hundred hectares of irrigated land or the equivalent in other types of land per person (Art. 27). The maximum size of what is considered small property also varies depending on the type of cultivation. If the land is dedicated to the cultivation of cotton and is irrigated, the maximum area per person is 150 hectares. If bananas, sugar cane, coffee, hennequen, rubber, palm trees, grapes, olives, quina, vanilla, cacao, agave, nopal, or fruit trees are cultivated, the area may be up to 300 hectares (Art. 27).

If the small plot is intended for livestock, its maximum area per person shall not exceed the area required for keeping up to 500 head of large livestock or their equivalent of small livestock according to the forage capacity of the land (Art. 27).

Ejidos are a very particular form of land ownership in Mexico, updated after the Mexican Revolution. The ejido is defined as a population nucleus made up of the set of lands, forests, and waters of an area, as well as the group of individuals holding agrarian rights [10]. They are socially owned lands in which different types of individual and collective tenure can coexist in a regulated manner. No member of the ejido can hold land rights for more than 5% of the land of the nucleus or an area larger than a small plot of land (Agrarian Law, Art. 47). Forests and virgin forests cannot be owned individually (Agrarian Law, Art. 59). Under the Agrarian Law, ejidos operate according to their own rules, and collective exploitation of ejido land can be decided if the Assembly decides to do so ( Art. 11).

Both ejidos and agrarian communities originated in the so-called pueblos de indios (indigenous towns) of the colonial period, which acquired their current name with the agrarian reform, although there is currently no direct link between the type of property and ethnic identity [11]. The difference between the two lies in the process by which ownership or dispossession of the land could or could not be proven [12]. Like ejidos, communities consist of all the land, forests, and water, and the people who live in them have common traditions, uses, and customs. Another difference between ejidos and communities is that community lands are inalienable (Art. 99). In addition, in communities, agricultural plots cannot be individually titled and community members cannot sell their land [13]. In order to access these rights, the agrarian community can be transformed into an ejido if so decided by the assembly. According to official data, obtained through a request for information to the Agrarian Attorney's Office, only 15 agrarian nucleus have changed their property regime, either from ejido to communal or from communal to ejido between 1992 and 2020. According to the latest available data from 2007 [14], social properties occupied 53.4% of the national surface, equivalent to 84.5 million hectares for ejidos and 17.4 million hectares for agrarian communities [15]. Private property occupies 39.8% of the land and national properties 7.7% [16].

The change of regime from ejido to community and vice versa is possible by following the regulations and in the corresponding assemblies. Once the transformation is approved, it must be registered as such in the National Agrarian Registry in order for the change to be legal (Agrarian Law, Art. 103 and 104). However, at present, the change to full ownership of ejido property is more frequent.  

Within the ejidos and agrarian communities there are different types of land tenure. Ejidatarios and comuneros have the right to cultivated land and access to common lands, which are areas not assigned individually whose domain can only be exercised collectively by the agrarian nucleus assembly and are composed of human settlement lands, common use lands and plots with a specific destination (for example, the industrial agricultural unit of peasant women, or the productive unit for the integral development of youth); possession holders can only have access to working plots; and avecindados are Mexican residents in the agrarian nucleus for at least one year who can become ejidatarios and have the right to purchase land in the ejido [17]. 

According to the Agrarian Law, ejidos must register their internal regulations with the National Agrarian Registry. At the internal level, the ejidos have the authority to delimit the lands within them using the technical norms issued by the National Agrarian Registry and the authority to decide and regulate their use (Agrarian Law, Art. 56). Parceled lands are individually owned and neither the assembly nor the ejidal commissariat can dispose of them without the written consent of the owners (Art. 77). For the assignment of land rights, the order of preference is: 1) possessors recognized by the assembly, 2) ejidatarios and neighbors of the population nucleus whose dedication and improvement are well known, 3) children of ejidatarios and neighbors who have worked the land for two or more years, 4) other individuals in the assembly's judgment (Art. 57). Once the parcels have been assigned, in order to assume full ownership of the parcels, the owners must deregister them in the National Agrarian Registry and register them in the Public Registry of Property (Art. 82). In addition to the parceled lands, within the ejido there are also human settlement lands where community life is carried out and those of common use.

Ejido and communal properties may be expropriated for public utility as detailed in Article 93 of the Agrarian Law.

Collective land rights

The reform of Article 27 of the Constitution in 1992 altered the nature of collective rights practiced in ejidos and agricultural communities. The reform was motivated by the conditions of marginality and poverty in the rural sector caused, among other reasons, by the politicization of agrarian distribution, the lack of control capacity of the authorities regarding the distribution of land within the ejidos, the bureaucratic processes making it difficult for young people to access land, the repeated economic crises and technological progress, and the limited arrival of subsidies to the countryside. Up to that time, the social function of ejido and communal lands gave them a legal character as inalienable, non-transferable, imprescriptible, unseizable and indivisible. However, the 1992 reform allows the alienation of such lands, favoring their privatization and commercialization (reference 2019).

Beyond what the law says, the formalization of communal land rights in ejidos and agrarian communities has depended more on practical issues and private interests than on issues of social justice. According to a study in Yucatan between 1994 and 1999, due to the lack of capacity of the delegations of the Procuradoría Agraria (Agrarian Attorney's Office) to achieve the goals of the Procede program, which aimed at issuing property titles to ejidatarios and communal landholders and delimit the boundaries of the agrarian nucleus, the assemblies decided to maintain the lands without formal parceling and only accepted the certification of the lands as a whole [18]. However, nowadays, common use lands are sold to national businessmen, but outside of the ejidos, by the ejidal assemblies advised by agrarian visitors, who are accused of disrupting the legal procedures to privatize lands [19]. There are numerous complaints by ejidatarios and indigenous organizations that accuse delegates and agrarian visitors of having favored the process of land dispossession from indigenous and peasant farmers. These intermediaries offer advice and information favoring an individualized exercise of ejido property that does not take into account the decisions of the general assembly while strengthening the authority of the ejido commissioners, making alienation possible [20]. According to this study, some of the strategies used resulted in land dispossession: the simplification of ejido land purchase and sale procedures by concentrating them in one assembly when they should be carried out in several, the holding of assemblies in indigenous regions without a translator, blank documents that ejido commissioners make ejido members sign to be used later to endorse land alienations without the assembly's consensus, or the dismissal of agrarian authorities who oppose development projects promoted by foreign investors. In this way, the private interests of the ejidatarios are prioritized at the expense of collective rights. 

The Constitution also recognizes collective rights of indigenous peoples with the right to self-determination (Art. 2). As the Constitution indicates, the rights of indigenous peoples are regulated by federal legislation. Some authors point out the legal impediment of indigenous peoples to directly exercise their rights since in the same Article 2 of the Constitution they are defined as "entities of public interest" which would nullify their character as "subjects of law" [21]. They also point out that at the federal level there is no registry, register or other official instrument delimiting indigenous territories, which impedes, and at the same time demonstrates, the lack of appropriate application of the collective rights of indigenous peoples [22].

_{EZLN Celebration of the National Indigenous Congress 2016. Photo: Mariana Osornio (CC BY-SA 4.0)}

Land use trends

Decentralized land governance largely determines land use decisions in the country. In particular, the capability of ejidos and communities to make decisions regarding the use of their land, and the fact that they occupy half of the country, make them highly influential actors in this regard. In addition to ejidos, one study argues that, due to the limited budgets assigned to state agencies, federal governments also play a key role in affecting the dynamics of land use change through agricultural subsidy programs and payments for environmental services [23].

In the ejidos, land can be used in five different ways: cultivation (individual plots); common use lands (woodlands, forests and jungles); areas designated by assembly decision for community needs such as education (school plots); productive activities for women (agricultural farms or rural industries for women) and for youth training (youth plots); plots for the ejido or for common use (wells, corrals, nurseries, etc.); and areas for human settlements [24]. However, it is not common to find school or youth plots in ejidos in practice. In general, rights holders manage agricultural land within ejidos on an individual basis. Forests, however, are under communal ownership. 

Historically, forest policy in Mexico has oscillated between limiting local control of forests by granting forest concessions and transferring forest management powers to ejidos and agrarian communities with forest cover [25]. In practice, according to Global Forest Watch, from 2000 to 2021 Mexico had an 8.4% decrease in tree cover [26]. World Bank data from 2020 indicate that, at the national level, the forest area represents 33% of the total area following a decreasing trend (in 1990 it represented 36%) [27]. Among the main factors contributing to deforestation in Mexico are land-use change for agriculture and livestock (82%), illegal logging (8%) and forest fires and disease (6%) [28]. The more than 400% increase in the price of palm oil between 2000 and 2011, and the increase in the price per head of cattle, partly explain the extension of agricultural and livestock frontiers [29]. In 2017, Mexico produced 873.5 thousand tons of oil palm grown on an area of 65,805 hectares. Chiapas contributed more than half of this production (57%) [30].

_{Las Nubes, Chiapas, Mexico. Photo: Moisés Vazquez (Unsplash license)} 

Between 70% and 80% of forest lands in Mexico are found in agrarian communities and ejidos, and are therefore managed collectively [31]. A study on community forest management in Mexico points to several aspects that influence the impact of communal forest management on forest conservation [32]. These include community rights and incentives to care for the forests. Communities with greater control over production and autonomy in forest management tend to invest more in forest protection and conservation. This is related to the development of a community forest economy, which influences the social value given to forests and, therefore, the incentives to care for them. On the contrary, in conditions of extreme poverty, the absence of economic options for forest use reduces their social value, increasing their vulnerability [33]. The same study indicates that community forest conservation activities are especially frequent in agrarian communities with indigenous identity.  

Some authors point to fundamental contradictions between agricultural and environmental policies leading to contradictory federal programs that on the one hand seek to improve production and on the other to protect forests [34]. The country expressed its concern with the environment in the General Law on Climate Change, passed in 2012, and in the publication a year later of its National Climate Change Strategy Vision 10-20-40 for 2050. The law promotes sustainable land use, and reconverting degraded agricultural land into ecological conservation zones [35]. On a practical level, climate change mitigation actions include the management of croplands and agricultural practices, reducing the conversion of forests to agriculture or pastures, and REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation including forest conservation, sustainable forest management with local participation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks) [36], although the program was not clearly implemented. In order to preserve Mexico's biodiversity, about 908,000 km2 have been declared as Federal Natural Protected Areas administered by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP - acronym in Spanish) [37].

The government also promotes low-emission development (DBE - acronym in Spanish) as territorial strategies, but its implementation is complex due to policy contradictions, different levels of decision making and uneven implementation of the legal framework due to conflicts of interest, corruption and insufficient institutional capacity [38]. This has led to favoring certain land uses over others as occurred with mining when it was declared of "public interest", later with other uses associated with the energy sector over conservation [39], and with the conversion of rural land into urban land due to population growth in cities and the need for housing. In fact, between 1998 and 2016, 53% of urban expansion occurred on ejidales or communal land [40].

Overall, 55% of land in Mexico is used for agriculture, according to 2018 data [41], a percentage that represents an increase of three points in four years. The 2019 National Agricultural Survey estimates 3,510,381 [42] production units engaged in open field cultivation of the crops of interest. The survey provides data on most crops by area cultivated. Wheat (97.6%), rice (91.4%), sugarcane (69.3%), yellow corn (67.6%), and white corn (55.2%) are grown mainly on plots larger than 5 hectares. The state where the most wheat is grown is Sonora, followed by Baja California and Sinaloa [43]. In terms of employment, it is estimated that about 12% of the economically active population works in the agricultural sector [44].

With respect to livestock, according to the National Agricultural Survey, it is estimated that 1,097,930 production units are dedicated to raising and exploiting cattle. Of these, 8.4% obtained credit or loans [45].

In 2010, Mexico's urban area occupied 102,418 km2 (no more updated data has been found) [46]. According to data from 2021, the metropolitan area is present throughout the national territory and includes 417 municipalities and 74 metropolitan areas where 62.8% of the population resides [47]. The urbanization process in recent years has been characterized by the concentration of population in a few cities, leading to the fact that in 2005 more than 63% of the population lived in only 550 of the 15,000 existing localities, while nearly 99% of the localities had less than 5,000 inhabitants [48].

Land investments and acquisitions

Trends in land investments and acquisitions in Mexico have paralleled policies that have affected ejidos and agrarian communities.  

Since the structural adjustment policies resulting from the macroeconomic crisis of 1982 [49] and the 1992 reforms that facilitated the privatization of ejido land, agrarian policies have promoted an agro-industrial vision for rural development by disproportionately financing, according to some authors, the wealthiest producers and cutting funds for programs that seek to improve local forest governance [50]. This trend has been established despite the National REDD+ Strategy that seeks to strengthen local governance in rural areas. 

However, in the agribusiness sector, land concentration is largely in the form of rents (between 28% and 50% depending on the source) [51]. Another characteristic of agribusiness in Mexico is that, rather than owning large tracts of land, control is exercised in the production chain by establishing contracts with small producers, especially for crops such as corn, sugarcane, coffee, fruits, vegetables, barley and dairy products [52].

In recent years, agribusiness in southeastern Mexico has been largely the responsibility of Mennonite communities - orthodox Christians of Germanic origin who arrived in the country in the early 20th century at the invitation of President Álvaro Obregón, who gave them land - who are considered to be the main landowners [53]. Despite their traditional rejection of technology, the Mennonites now use heavy machinery to increase their soybean, corn and sorghum crops. One of the states most affected by this extensive agriculture is Campeche, which partly explains why Campeche suffered the greatest deforestation in 2016 by losing 54,700 hectares of jungle (22% of the country's total) [54].

Mining is one of the sectors that attracts most investment in Mexico. Investment increased in recent years, reaching more than US$4 billion in 2021, representing an increase of 16.8% over the previous year [55]. Mining has made Mexico the leading producer of silver worldwide for more than 10 years and among the top 10 in the production of 17 minerals including fluorspar, celestite, wollastonite, zinc, salt, copper and gold. Mining contributes just over 3% to gross domestic product [56]. 

At the legal level, mining has enjoyed a certain privilege since the Mining Law states that the exploration, exploitation and benefit of minerals are preferential over any other use of the land unless a federal law states otherwise [57]. This obliges the ejidos to cede their land for the extraction of minerals and hydrocarbons. The 2013 energy reform also facilitated the dispossession of land for oil and hydrocarbon concessions by declaring lands with such resources to be of public interest [58]. Recently, however, the right to consultation of indigenous people living in a mining area in the state of Puebla has prevailed. In February 2022, after seven years of legal battle, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the indigenous community in Tecoltemi, canceling two mining concessions projected on an area of 14,229 hectares because the government did not previously consult the community, contrary to the Constitution and the Labor Organization's Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples [59].

​​Recently, mining investments have been slowed down in order to increase investment in lithium extraction [60]. At the moment, the exploration phase is underway at 60 sites in Mexico, for which US$2.7 million has been budgeted [61]. Mexico's lack of experience in lithium production, and depending on the evaluation of the exploratory phase, would potentially make it a call for investment or nationalization, as proposed by the government.

Women’s land rights

The Mexican Constitution recognizes women and men as equals before the law (Art. 40). The Agrarian Law (1992) makes some specific provisions for the development and protection of rural women. For example, it empowers the assembly to reserve a place on the best lands for women's industrial agricultural unit (Art. 71). It also enables women belonging to an agrarian nucleus to organize themselves as a Women's Industrial Agricultural Unit (Art. 108). It also recognizes women as ejidatarias and holders of ejido rights (Art. 12), which enables them to hold positions and have a voice and vote in assemblies. However, few ejidos are presided over by a woman. In 2019, only 7.4% of ejidos were presided over by women [62].  Neither the Constitution nor the Agrarian Law use gender language which hinders the exercise of women's rights since using the masculine form does not contribute to dismantle uses and customs where women have to ask permission from their fathers, husbands or male guardians to access loans, administrative procedures or decision-making processes. 

In addition to not being owners and not participating in decision-making, a study on forest management in the state of Hidalgo shows how the division of labor according to gender roles also inhibits women's participation [63]. In the community studied, San Pedrito, there is a social construction of the forest as a masculine space. This implies that, in most cases, men are in charge of timber production and sale, while women are relegated to activities such as pruning, replanting or food production.

In relation to access to land, according to 2019 data from the National Agrarian Registry, only 25.9% of people who hold a parcel certificate accrediting them as ejidatarias or comuneras are women [64]. Data on land ownership by women also varies by state. In Mexico City, Baja California, Guerrero and Sonora it exceeds 30%, while in Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo it is less than 20% [65]. The lack of land titles has prevented women from accessing support for the agricultural sector [66], despite the fact that they contribute greatly to food production in Mexico. To solve this problem, the Mexican government has implemented programs that do not require women to be ejidatarias or owners in order to access them. For example, the Sembrando Vida (Seeding Life) program benefited 31% women and Production for Wellbeing dedicated 27.8% of resources in 2019 for women agricultural producers [67].

Some studies reveal that the creation of women farmers' cooperatives is crucial to enable and empower women, especially in contexts where policy implementation is weak [68].

Where to go next?

The author's suggestion for further reading

Ejidos and agrarian communities in Mexico have been transformed over time in ways that are not reflected in legislation. The article Ejidos/Communities analyzes the new uses, meanings and values attached to these forms of land ownership where agriculture has often ceased to be the main activity [69].

Despite the existing legislation and mechanisms in Mexico to guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples, ejidos and agrarian communities regarding their lands and territories, implementation and operation do not always produce the expected results. The Informe sobre la jurisdicción agraria y los derechos humanos de los pueblos indígenas y campesinos en México (Report on Agrarian Jurisdiction and the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Peasants in Mexico), published in 2018 by DPLF, provides evidence of this matter [70].

Mexico, like many other countries in the world, is increasingly aware of the need to make commitments against climate change. One of the challenges is how to include such commitments in the structure of already existing policies and institutions without creating contradictions between policies and considering interactions at the national and international levels. The study Los nuevos arreglos institucionales sobre gobernanza ambiental y cambio climático en México (The New Institutional Arrangements on Environmental Governance and Climate Change in Mexico), published in 2017, analyzes the problems of integrating environmental governance into institutional frameworks in Mexico and reflects on the conditions for effective environmental governance [71]. 

Precisely one of the challenges of environmental governance is the conflicts and damages generated by the creation of natural protected areas in already inhabited territories. The article Campesinos sin resolución agraria: la difícil construcción de la gobernanza ambiental en un área natural protegida de Chiapas (Peasants without agrarian resolution: the difficult construction of environmental governance in a natural protected area in Chiapas), Mexico presents an example of the contradictions between conservation and agrarian policies, generating processes of marginalization and exclusion contrary to both [72]. Environmental protection and sustainable development go hand in hand. The report Gobernanza de la Tierra y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sustentable en México (Land Governance and the Sustainable Development Goals in Mexico), published by several non-governmental organizations in 2021, offers an analysis of how the implementation of these goals affects ejidos and particularly women [73].

Timeline - milestones in land governance

1910-1920 - Mexican Revolution
The origin of the Mexican Revolution was related to the demarcation and division of indigenous communal lands, called ejidos. The authorization of Porfirio Diaz's government to make these lands parcelable in 1890 was the beginning of a land policy in favor of the large landowners and led to the fact that in 1910, 1% of Mexican families owned about 85% of the land. Revolutionary leaders Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata put an end to the Diaz dictatorship after 35 years in government with slogans such as "Land and Liberty" and "the land is for those who work it".

1917 - Agrarian Reform
The distribution of land in the form of ejidos and communities began as early as 1910. In 1917, land restitution was established. In its first stage, the reform was understood as an act of social justice for the benefit of peasants. Later the reform was considered as part of national economic development.

1934 - Creation of the Agrarian Code
The Agrarian Code formalizes the recognition and confirmation of de facto communities, giving them legal certainty over their possessions.

1950s - Private forest concessions
In these years many of the communal forests were initially granted to private companies - which in the 1970s would become governmental - for exploitation. This led to communities losing their rights to forest lands.

1980s - Structural adjustment measures 
The economic structural adjustment measures implemented in Mexico in the 1980s led to the closure of the parastatal companies that controlled the forests, allowing communities to regain control of the forests. This right was legally recovered through the 1986 Forestry Law, which prohibited forest concessions and granted communities the right to be consulted on any project that could threaten their property rights. 

1992 - Agrarian Reform
In 1992 Article 27 of the Constitution was reformed with the purpose of ending the land distribution initiated in 1915 and liberalizing the lands endowed or restituted as ejidos and communities, which until then were considered inalienable. That same year the Agrarian Law was created regarding the ejido and the community as social property regimes.  

1994 - Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas
In 1994, indigenous people of Chiapas organized in the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN - acronym in Spanish), led by Subcomandante Marcos, rose up claiming ownership of land taken from indigenous people as part of a larger demand for equity and indigenous political participation in the organization of the Mexican State. The government responded by sending its Armed Forces to suppress the rebellion leading to a conflict that ended with the signing of the San Andres Accords in 1996. 

2001 - Advances in the recognition of indigenous rights
In March 2001 an indigenous march left Chiapas on its way to Mexico City led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation demanding to be recognized as Mexicans as well as indigenous people [74]. That same year, Article 2 of the Constitution was reformed to recognize the Nation with "a pluricultural composition originally sustained by its indigenous peoples, who are those descended from populations that inhabited the country's current territory at the beginning of colonization and who conserve their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, or part of them"[75].