Mexico City, Mexico—- During her first international trip as Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum advocated for what she called the largest reforestation program in history, proposing to use 1% of the world’s military budget to finance it.
During her intervention at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, President Sheinbaum pushed for a reforestation program, which has already been implemented in Mexico with conflicting results.
“The proposal is to establish a fund to allocate 1% of our countries’ military spending to carry out the largest reforestation program in history. This would mean freeing up about 24 billion dollars per year (12 times what Mexico currently allocates) to support 6 million tree planters who would reforest 15 million hectares—about four times the size of Denmark, the entire area of Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador combined, or 30% of Sweden’s land area,” she noted.
As Sheinbaum explained during her intervention at the G20 summit, her initiative takes off from an already existing social development program in Mexico called “Sowing Life,” (Sembrando Vida) first implemented by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018 aimed at curbing migratory flows from southeastern Mexico and Central America.
Sowing Life consists of direct cash payments to laborers enrolled in the program, receiving around $300 USD per month for planting timber and fruit trees. In over six years of operation, the program has planted over 1,139,372 hectares of trees and supported 438,289 farmers.
While initially dedicated to Mexico’s southeast, the federal government has expanded its operation, and the program now encompasses 24 states across the country, and other countries in Central America such as El Salvador and Guatemala.
However, NGOs and journalists have drawn concerns regarding the ultimate impact of the program and its practices.
Reports have covered that the Sowing Life program has caused massive deforestation in the southeast, such as the 10,000 hectares burned in 2019 in Quintana Roo, to give way for the signature fruit trees designated to be planted by the program.
The World Resources Institute Mexico also reported in 2021 that within the municipalities where Sowing Life was implemented in 2019, there were 72,830 hectares of forest loss.
Moreover, the program is responsible for the felling of native trees in order to have enough space for the trees allowed by Sowing Life.
Regardless, Sheinbaum’s initiative seems to stream at par with her Brazilian counterpart and incumbent President of the G20, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who kickstarted the international forum by launching an initiative of his own to end world hunger and poverty.
“By doing so, we would help mitigate global warming and restore the social fabric by helping communities escape poverty. The proposal is to stop sowing wars, let’s sow peace and let’s sow life,” she said at the First Working Session, titled “Fight Against Hunger and Poverty.”
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