Mexico City, Mexico — During her first international trip as President of Mexico, 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 speech at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, President Sheinbaum pushed for a reforestation program that has already been implemented in Mexico with mixed results.
“The proposal is to create a fund to allocate 1% of our countries military spending to carry out the largest reforestation program in history. That would mean freeing up about $24 billion a 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. El Salvador combined, or 30% of Sweden’s land area,” she noted.
As Sheinbaum explained during her intervention at the G20 summit, her initiative stems from an already existing social development program in Mexico called “Planting Life.”Planting Life) first implemented by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, with the aim of curbing migratory flows from southeastern Mexico and Central America.
Sowing Life consists of direct cash payments to workers enrolled in the program, receiving approximately USD 300 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 originally dedicated to southeastern Mexico, the federal government has expanded its operations and the program now includes 24 states across the country and other Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala.
However, NGOs and journalists have raised concerns about 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 make way for 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.
In addition, the program is responsible for cutting down native trees so that there is enough space for trees permitted by Sowing Life.
Regardless, Sheinbaum’s initiative appears to be on par with her Brazilian counterpart and current G20 President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who kicked off the international forum by launching an initiative of his own to end world hunger and poverty.
“By doing this, we would help mitigate global warming and restore 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 in the First Working Session, entitled “Fight against hunger and poverty”.
