The peasants in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca face significant difficulties in sustaining their livelihoods as farmers. The soil is washing away down the mountainsides, rainfall patterns are changing, peasants must rely on fertilizers to produce the most meager of crops, and more attractive jobs in factories along the U.S.-Mexican border and work in the U.S. draw villagers away from their homes. The farmers' investment of time and money in planting their traditional crops is usually more than what they gain at the end of the planting season, and so the pull to leave farming is growing. In the past 15 years, the peasants in the area of Huatulco along the Pacific coast of the Oaxaca have seen a significant change in their community.
Land is owned and managed communally through a land tenure system called an agrarian community.
In Huatulco, the agrarian community extended over 50,500 hectares. However, in 1984, the Mexican government expropriated approximately 21,000 hectares spanning 32 km of the coast to create a resort-complex called the Bays of Huatulco. This mass-tourism project attracts tourists to its 4 and 5 star hotels to enjoy the beaches, the ocean, and the tropical dry forest. Though few people were actually displaced by this expropriation, the local people have been impacted in major ways. On their way to these destinations, tourists enjoy views of small villages, agricultural fields, and forest all shaped and cared for by the agrarian community members.