In Mexico, biodiversity conservation is primarily implemented through three schemes: 1) protected
areas, 2) payment-based schemes for environmental services, and 3) community-based conservation,
officially recognized in some cases as Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas. In this paper we
compare levels of local participation across conservation schemes. Through a survey applied to 670
households across six communities in Southeast Mexico, we document local participation during the
creation, design, and implementation of the management plan of different conservation schemes. To
analyze the data, we first calculated the frequency of participation at the three different stages
mentioned, then created a participation index that characterizes the presence and relative intensity of
local participation for each conservation scheme. Results showed that there is a low level of local
participation across all the conservation schemes explored in this study. Nonetheless, the payment for
environmental services had the highest local participation while the protected areas had the least. Our
findings suggest that local participation in biodiversity conservation schemes is not a predictable
outcome of a specific (community-based) model, thus implying that other factors might be important in
determining local participation. This has implications on future strategies that seek to encourage local
involvement in conservation.