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 Editorials | Environmental | March 2008 
Mexico: Record Reforestation, But Some Still Sceptical
 Diego Cevallos - Tierramérica
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Mexico City - A year ago, environmental activists criticised Mexico's national forest policy, saying it was deceptive and insufficient. Now voices are being heard that extol the government's effort and its goal to plant 280 million trees in 2008 - 30 million more than in 2007.
"They are doing some interesting things, with highly qualified people. We should be open to the changes," Sergio Madrid, spokesperson for G-Bosques, a coalition of 14 citizen groups and forest producers, told Tierramérica.
The government has not established special zones for reforestation, except for some specific programmes centred on threatened areas, especially in the country's southeast. The campaign operates mostly in response to requests from owners of rural land and state governments.
Each state has set its own goal, and the combined total yields the total of 280 million trees to be planted across more than 600,000 hectares in a bid to halt loss of forest cover. In 2007, the governmental National Forestry Commission (Conafor), received 80,000 reforestation requests, but could only attend to half.
Of the 100 forested municipalities facing greatest marginalisation - located primarily in Guerrero, Chiapas and Oaxaca states - 85 percent of the requests were fulfilled.
Among the dozens of species of trees, bushes and cactuses, pine trees are the most widely planted. In arid and semi-arid zones, examples of the species planted are: mesquite, nopal, agave and stone pine (Pinus pinea L).
In temperate areas, the trees being planted are the sacred fir (Abies religiosa), ash, cypress and oak; and in the tropical regions cedro rojo (Cedrela odorata), big-leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), andiroba (Carapa guianensis) and trumpet tree (Tabebuia rosea), among others.
But environmental groups like the Mexican branch of Greenpeace International say the tree-planting project is a failure and hides an alarming rate of deforestation.
The Conafor general coordinator for conservation and restoration, Vicente Arriaga, told Tierramérica that those "biting criticisms" from some activists are the result, in part, of their own lack of contact with foresters and the peasant farmers who receive or request government support.
The current rate of deforestation, according to Arriaga, is less than 300,000 hectares per year. In a decade reforestation "will have compensated the loss of forests," he said.
The conservative government of President Felipe Calderón has the backing of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the highest global authority on forest issues, to curb forest loss in Mexico and to reduce illegal logging to a minimum.
But Héctor Magallón, head of the Greenpeace-Mexico forest campaign, says the official deforestation figures are not credible, and that 600,000 hectares of forest are lost yearly.
Mexico's forests cover approximately 56 million hectares and play a fundamental role in channelling two-thirds of the freshwater consumed in the country.
According to Greenpeace, Mexico is one of the world's five leading deforesters, with Brazil in first place and India in second.
The G-Bosques spokesperson Madrid agrees, noting that the government figures on deforestation are doubtful. He believes there were "methodological problems when they were compiled."
This year the government will spend some 500 million dollars on forest programmes. This unprecedented sum is distributed among reforestation efforts, payments for "environmental services" to owners of forested lands, and soil conservation projects, among others.
But Greenpeace argues that planting trees does not solve the problem, because only a small percentage of the seedlings survive. "The programme is a failure," Magallón told Tierramérica.
Arriaga accuses the activists of using data from the 1980s and erroneously focusing on tree survival.
In the agro-forestry sciences, it is expected that in a period of 30 years just 10 to 30 percent of the planted trees will survive, said Arriaga. "That is not failure," he argued.
Maximising the density of trees per hectare is one of the programme's objectives, because later the least thriving trees are thinned out, he said.
Between ages 10 and 15, trees have their greatest capacity to capture carbon, the main factor contributing to the greenhouse effect. After that, many trees should be cut, because if a high density of trees is maintained, they will lose their carbon capturing properties, he added.
Madrid, who a year ago looked upon these government programmes with suspicion, now sees them as the right approach, "although they remain insufficient."
He noted that the government earmarks some 100 million dollars per year to pay various sums to owners of forest totalling 8.5 million hectares to conserve and manage the forests.
"The support could and should reach 20 million hectares, but there is progress and I wouldn't want to put the accent on the strategy's weak points," Madrid said.
About the millions of trees to be planted this year, he commented that it is a valid programme, "independently of the possible survival of the trees."
Furthermore, the fact that the government is publicising the reforestation effort and proclaiming Mexico as a world leader on the issue "isn't a negative, because it has helped raise environmental awareness," he said.
Magallón, in contrast, sees it as "an embarrassment" that the government's support of conservation of existing forests is "so marginal" and that it is giving so much publicity to reforestation.
Arriaga refuted the Greenpeace assertion that the government spends more on reforestation than on soil conservation, payment to small farmers for environmental services and other areas. "We have met with them, and we have given them the figures," he said. The U.N. Environment Programme established a global goal for 2007-2008 to plan one billion trees per year. Mexico is the country contributing most towards that objective, say the authorities.
Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme. |
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