Mexico’s reforestation drive under fire again

Mexico’s controversial reforestation program, ProÁrbol, is in the hot seat again. The program’s director, José Cibrián Tovar, resigned in March as head of the National Forestry Commission (Conafor) just days after a federal audit revealed his agency had inflated figures from its 2007 tree planting campaign. Although officials reported meeting their goal of 400,000 hectares (1 million acres), in reality they reforested 341,000 hectares (866,000 acres)—a shortfall of 17%, the auditors found. The auditors also charged Conafor, a semi-autonomous agency within the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat), with failure to report US$47,000 in compensation to farmers for switching from agriculture to forestry, among other irregularities. The findings were a major embarrassment for the government of President Felipe Calderón, which had... [Log in to read more]

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