Mexico's Quarter of a Billion Tree Challenge
 Ron Mader - Planeta.com
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Mexico is pledging to plant a quarter of a billion trees in 2007. Now that the rainy season has begun, reforestation projects are about to bloom.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments are encouraged to enter tree planting pledges online with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide during 2007.
Mexico's President, Felipe Calderon, declared that his country would plant 250 million trees in 2007. The Mexican government launched the Pro Árbol (Pro Tree) Campaign which aims to reach one fourth of the goal set by the UNEP campaign.
The Mexican government will invest over six billion pesos in 2007 with funds assigned to support nearly 400,000 inhabitants in ejidos and communities. The Pro-Tree Program will be used to recover areas amd recharge the aquifers. It will focus on four main areas: first, conservation and restoration, second, planning and forest organization, third, production and productivity, and fourth, to produce infrastructure, means of communication, country roads and all the other things required to contribute to forestry.
President Calderón explained that his government had signed an agreement with the United Nations, included in the Millennium Development Goals, pledging to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into national policies and programs and to reduce the loss of environmental resources.
The representative of the Mexican Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, Juan Elvira Quesada, and the Regional Director of UNEP/ROLAC signed a setter in which the Mexican Government states its intention of joining the worldwide initiative, through reforestation campaigns and the promotion of the civil society and productive sectors implicated in forest topics.
President Calderon made this announcement at the launching of the Pro Árbol, sponsored by the Chemistry Nobel Prize winner, Mario Molina.
The 250 million trees pledged are indigenous to Mexico and include the following species: Acacia farnesiana, Agave atrovirens, Agave crupeata, Agave sp, Alnus sp, Brosimium alicastrum, Cedrela odorata, Cupresus lindleyi, Enterolobium cyclocarpum, Junglas piriformis, Junglas regia, Liquidambar macrophylla, Pinus arizonica, Pinus ayacahuite, Pinus cembroides, Pinus cooperi, Pinus chiapensis, Pinus devoniana, Pinus douglasiana, Pinus durangensis, Pinus engelmannii, Pinus gregii, Pinus hartwegii, Pinus jeffreyi, Pinus michoacana, Pinus montezumae, Pinus nelsoni, Pinus oaxacana,P inus oocarpa, Pinus patula, Pinus pinceana, Pinus pseudostrobus, Pinus rudis, Pinus teocote, Pithecelobium paliens, Prosopis glandulosa, Prosopis laevigata, Prosopis velutina, Quercus sp, Quercus virens, Swietenia macrophylla andYuca filifera.
REFERENCES
Forest Guide
Forum on Latin American Forests (FOLAF)
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) |
Vallarta Weddings
Editorials | Environmental | June 2007 
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