Baja California Sur is divided into five administrative municipalities; from south to north, they are Los Cabos, La Paz, Comondú, Loreto, and Mulegé.

The Municipality of Los Cabos is in the southernmost extreme of the peninsula of Baja California Sur. It has an area of 2,175 square miles, which is 5% of the state’s total territory.  The relief is relatively mountainous with several large ranges: la Trinidad range reaches 2,690 feet above sea level; San Lázaro reaches 5,217 feet; and la Laguna reaches 6,857 feet. Water streams are sporadic, only formed after intense rainfall and hurricanes; the San Lázaro dam retains water to feed aquifers.[1] 

The Municipality of La Paz accounts for 20% of the total area in the state.[2] The head of the municipality and the state is the city of La Paz, but the municipal territory extends to the coastal town of Todos Santos on the Pacific side of Baja California Sur. The city of La Paz is considered mainly urban, although it is surrounded by vast stretches of undeveloped beaches, mangroves, and inland areas that are currently being targeted for tourism developments (Balandra Beach and El Mogote are examples).  The city of La Paz is buffered by El Mogote and the nearby islands of Espíritu Santo, Cerralvo, and San José, which protect the city and the Bay of La Paz from most heavy storms. 

The Municipality of Comondú is in the central part of the state and has an area of 7,444 square miles, with thirty localities. The head of municipality is Ciudad Constitution.  Magdalena Bay is a well-known destination in Comondú, with substantial mangroves, beaches, and fishing grounds and is popular as a birthing ground for the California Grey Whale that comes to its tranquil waters during the winter months.[3]

The Municipality of Loreto includes the historical capital of the Californias, the city of Loreto, which was founded on October 25, 1697. The municipality is located in the central part of the state of Baja California Sur, along the coast of the Gulf of California. Loreto has 110 miles of coastline, three small islets, and seven islands, much of which is protected as part of the Loreto Bay National Marine Park.[4]

The Municipality of Mulegé is located in the northern part of the state, neighboring the state of Baja California; the head of the municipality is Guerrero Negro. The municipality of Mulege covers an area of 20,563 square miles, which accounts for 44.9% of the state area; it is the second largest municipality in México after Ensenada in Baja California.[5] Within the municipality, there are thirteen fishing and cattle ranching communities in the region of Laguna San Ignacio.  With an area of 1,544 square miles, these rural communities control property and natural resource rights to some of the most important conservation and tourism areas in the state (Laguna San Ignacio is one of the most popular destinations for whale watching along the Baja California peninsula).[6]

General data on land tenure and its impact on economic development

The land tenure situation in Baja California Sur is complex and varies among municipalities because the state has no centralized cadastral system.  Each municipality has an independent system, lending itself to duplicity of ownership and sometimes even corruption.  These recurring issues lead to title disputes, confusion, and a chaotic bureaucracy that further hinders the state’s economic development and investment.

Land has traditionally been abundant in this sparsely-populated territory.  From the mid-19^th century to the beginning of the 20^th century, land values were closely linked to the load capacity of the pasture, or in other words, the number of cattle the land could support.  Later on, by digging deep wells and launching intensive agriculture in the state’s alluvial valleys, property owners were able to value their land in relation to the potential of obtaining high agricultural yields in fertile, virgin soils, with water extracted from groundwater aquifers. This situation lasted for six decades and left behind a devastated landscape with saline intrusion in the exhausted wells. 

In the 1960s, when FONATUR, the Mexican federal tourism development agency, began to develop the region, land was valuable because of its landscape beauty, particularly within the coastal strip between La Paz and Cabo San Lucas.  In fact, the quick progress of tourism infrastructure (including golf courses and second-home residential developments) resulted in very high land values.  Today, the coastal areas have become particularly valuable with land speculators anticipating future resort and tourism development as part of the proposed Escalera Nautica project (now renamed the Proyecto Mar de Cortéz).  This situation is not restricted to the above-mentioned zone, but extends to all land lots along the coast and adjacent properties, particularly between Cabo San Lucas and Todos Santos, and around Loreto, Bahia Concepción, and Mulegé.

This evolving scenario is further complicated by Mexico’s distribution of land, which began in 1919 and ended in 1993.[7] According to the last ejido[8] census, carried out in 1991,[9] the state has 100 ejidos, occupying 13,398,657 acres, amounting to 73.6% of the state’s total area.[10]  Private property owners control only an area of 1,935,646 acres, equal to 10.6%.  The rest of the territory in the state is divided into national plots (6.4%); 75 colonias [neighborhoods] (1.9%); and legal estates, urban areas, and federal areas (7.5%).

Only 0.37% of the ejido area is sub-divided into parcels, worked by six thousand ejidatarios of whom almost 50% have an individual plot of land. According to a 1993 study of agricultural development from 1960-1991, of the ninety ejidos with over 6,178 acres, forty have more than 61,776 acres.  The study found that only nine ejidos have less than 6,178 acres. Seventy-five percent of the surveyed ejidos and agrarian communities were involved in agricultural and livestock activities.  Other activities account for the remaining 25%.[11]  

It is important to mention that these data are constantly changing due to the reform[12] to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution.  In that civil code, the ejido ownership structure was radically modified.  Previously, land under ejido control was inalienable and indivisible. The above-mentioned reform allowed ejido owners to sell their land through a process of certifying ejido rights and title deed (PROCEDE[13]).  This situation explains why the ejido area in 2004 decreased by 1,442,591 acres (or almost a 9% decline), compared to the figures in 1991.

The distribution of ejidos varies among municipalities. The prevalence of ejido land in the two northern municipalities is explained by economic characteristics — mainly agricultural — and by the lack of urbanization, but especially by low population density. Since these were always the least populated areas in the territory, they were most eligible for government land distribution to rural people during the early 20^th century.  Furthermore, agrarian authorities also equated the flat topography with future agricultural development zones.

(click here to view the map in full size)

Large ejidos suffered both social and natural impacts from agrarian land reform. The process resulted in a change in the size and composition of the population because land was distributed to farmers coming from other regions of the country, thereby altering traditional farming and ranching methods.  When these new techniques failed to yield substantive products, ejido members began to seek employment in the cities or left the state altogether. Today, these formerly productive agricultural regions are now desolate and abandoned, populated by the elderly, women, and children.

Thus, even ejido owners who have complete ownership of land were unable to establish a strong bond to that asset.  There are very few ejidos that have not sold land and, of those interviewed for this study,[14] 64% (16 out of 25) have the intention to sell or to continue selling their land.  In addition, large extensions of ejido areas with low population density hamper the permanent surveillance necessary to check legal ownership or posesionarios.  Consequently, land invasion is common, creating land tenure conflicts. 

Of those ejidos that have sold land, several have done so to parties interested in establishing agricultural or aquaculture companies.  Agribusiness is attracting a large number of day laborers and increasing pressure for municipal and state governments to introduce public services in rural areas (including water).  Only parts of the region are naturally endowed with water, which in arid zones are known as oases.  Oasis areas are under new threats from emerging tourism developments that require water resources for golf courses, residential housing, and resort services.  Aquaculture and agribusiness also require infusions of fresh water, which mainly come from groundwater sources.  

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