Bloomberg
How Mexico’s Great Tree Planting Program Finally Encourages Deforestation
(Bloomberg) – In the hills of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, the jungle suddenly stops and dozens of trees scatter around charred tree stumps. The seedlings are a sign of the government’s extensive reforestation program, known as Sembrando Vida, or Sowing Life. But so too the burnt-out openness; In this part of Mexico, the project is linked to widespread destruction as well as rebirth. Under Mexico’s previous government, the owner was paid to care for the jungle on their land, but after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador adopted the program’s budget of the program in 2018. was hacked and the boring life was introduced. It pays farmers rather to plant trees for fruit or timber on small plots of land, with the aim of creating an industry in underprivileged rural areas for decades to come, but a trip in late February to Yucatan and Campeche, two participating states in southeastern Mexico. , showed that shortcomings at the beginning of the project could threaten its good intentions. “That’s what Sowing Life does,” Jose, a local farmer, kicked a black stump. He asked that she be withheld for fear of losing government funds because he criticized the program. and inequality. In Yucatan and Campeche, however, the local population speaks of uncertainty about the legal status of plots and of a dogmatic approach by some program administrators that does not take into account basic agricultural practices. The main charge, however, is that the system encourages farmers to clear soil from jungle in preparation for the plant. ‘In many cases people have said,’ Well, I have my acre of jungle, but the program is coming, so I’ll cut down the jungle, use the trees for my house, or sell wood or whatever, and if the program dawn, I will “We will sow seed again,” said Sergio Lopez Mendoza, a professor of ecology and conservation at the University of Natural Sciences and Arts of Chiapas, the southernmost part of Mexico. The previous program paid a lump sum to the community, which would be used to protect and maintain the jungle and ecosystems in their area. Sowing Life offers direct payments, a change that in some areas is seen as harming the common dynamics in favor of individualism. The Ministry of Welfare, which is responsible for Sowing Life, did not respond to detailed questions about the program. According to the government, the president’s office did not want to comment. According to the government, the program currently pays about 420,000 farmers a month 4,500 pesos (about $ 213) to plant trees. The goal is to rebuild a little over one million hectares of land in Mexico by 2021 and grow more than one billion plants. According to the government, it is on track to reach the target. to the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit environment that has worked with the Mexican government to monitor the results of Sowing Life. The Washington-based WRI estimates that the program may have caused the loss of nearly 73,000 acres of forest cover in 2019, the first full year, according to a satellite-based study shared with Bloomberg News. New York City. According to WRI’s calculations, this is also almost half of the average annual amount of forest cover lost due to changes in land use and illegal logging in the same region. Some people think that the devastation could be even worse. Juan Manuel Herrera, a forestry engineer from Campeche, said the state may have seen far greater losses than estimated by WRI. The monthly payments are a critical lifeline for some of the poorest communities in a country plagued by the pandemic. Mexico’s economy declined by 8.2% in 2020, while formal employment declined in all areas outside the industrial northern border states. Social programs are central to supporting the president’s Morena party ahead of the midterm elections in June, and polls show voters see it as one of the government’s best achievements, but at the local level, environmental damage threatens to outweigh the benefits . According to one participant, only one town in Campeche cut down more than two-thirds of the participants in the forest to participate. Antonio, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of consequences. showed where he and his family members cleared a dense area of trees, including Tzalam, or Caribbean walnut, and Red Chaca, commonly known as gumbo limbo, to be eligible for payments. A Sowing Life representative in the town denied that people had cut down trees entering the program and saying that they had used former pasture. Antonio at least said they left the pasture untouched because their cows needed it. He wanted to keep the jungle intact and cut down a few small trees to grow the others, he said, but the program’s representatives were only looking for land – and he needed government money. The contradiction of Life adds to the poor of Lopez Obrador. record on climate. The president has consistently favored state oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, and the civil service in favor of private renewable projects. He received criticism from NGOs for building an oil refinery on the site of a mangrove forest and for a planned tourist railway through the rainforest. The Mexican government has joined Russia and Brazil not to improve its climate commitments in Paris ahead of the COP26 summit in November. In 2019, Lopez Obrador rejected calls to declare an emergency in the climate by pointing to Sowing Life along with the government to deny mining. allow water and save and say he is “very satisfied” with his environmental record. Mexico “is doing everything possible to stop the destruction of forests,” he said. Recently last month, he called Sowing Life a “blessed program” and said it was regularly the most important reforestation plan in the world. The project could point to successes, with about 660 million plants in the ground or being cultivated by the end of 2020. Yet the ambitious targets are far from enough for the program to be the most important factor in Mexico that its Paris- goals, Adrian Fernandez Bremauntz, executive director of the Mexican Climate Initiative, told an NGO. “These kinds of programs, if not well designed, can lead to perverse incentives,” he said. The system of payments has given communities living in the jungle for centuries a dilemma: pruning your habitat or The much-needed income. Bernardo Chankin, a village leader in the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas, said less than a third of the families from his town were able to enter the program because the community did not want trees to fall. ” to conservation, “Chankin said by telephone. Now rivers and wells in his part of Chiapas are drying up as a result of deforestation he has encouraged according to the project. Others like Jose, the Yucatan farmer, say their communities have no choice. “What can we do?” he said. “This is the only opportunity there is.” The government appears to be doing little to ensure the resilience of the project, with farmers not being asked to sign contracts but only debentures, two participants said, adding the areas designated for timber not being formally registered, which cause uncertainty about the granting of permits needed to grow the trees as soon as they mature, some farmers pocket the payments and do the minimum to avoid emissions from the program and argue that they can simply plant more profitable crops when handing out plots There are young guys who say, ‘Oh, lady, why are you drinking?’ ‘Nancy Lopez, 57, a Yucatan farmer, proudly boasts a small nursery with trees she’ll plant soon. of the program may not be helped by terminating the program.Some of the practices seen at the local level In an effort to encourage fruit or wood yields, administrators often ask participants to be non-native planting trees, which can struggle in alien environments. Forestry engineer Herrera and his team estimate that only 10-30% of the trees planted in some regions will survive. Everything is not lost yet. Jose Ivan Zuniga, a manager of the forestry team at WRI Mexico, praised the government’s ambition and said the problem was the rush for implementation. If it is done well now and maintained in 2030, the program can capture two to three times the carbon lost at the beginning, it is important that the government legally registers the plots and guarantees that the planted hectares remain in forestry . system for at least 30 years, Zuniga said. Otherwise, he said, “it’s all going to go down the drain.” Read more: How deforestation affects climate change affects the time to save the last of the world’s rainforests. The real trees that produce false corporate climate progress. For more articles like this, feel free to visit us at bloomberg.com. Sign up now to stay ahead of the most trusted business news source. © 2021 Bloomberg LP