Mexico boosts forest protection and launches massive tree‑planting program for protected areas

The State of Mexico’s forest agency (Probosque) and the Agrarian Prosecutor’s Office have formalized a joint strategy to strengthen protection of forest zones. The cooperation focuses on combating illegal logging, forest fires and pest outbreaks, improving land‑title certainty, and training public officials in restoration, fire prevention and sustainable use.

At the national level, Mexico’s Subsecretariat of Productive Inclusion and Rural Development signed an agreement with the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp) to restore 32 protected natural areas. The plan calls for planting 300 million native and endemic trees by 2026, involving more than 600 municipalities, 509 agrarian cores and 18,505 community nurseries. It targets degraded soils, water infiltration, habitat recovery and the creation of biocultural corridors in the Yucatán Peninsula, benefitting 43 Maya communities. The initiative integrates biodiversity conservation with rural development and aims to reverse the loss of 4.6 million hectares of forest recorded between 2001 and 2023.