The budget in Mexico for Protected Natural Areas (ANP) lacks harmony with the current administration's policies to add new territories in order to protect biodiversity and ecosystems.
“The protection of biodiversity in Mexico is at risk. If money continues to be cut and Protected Natural Areas are declared left and right, we will have a good percentage of our country under protection and care, but without any public resources to effectively protect it,” said Gina Chacón, public policy coordinator for Wildlands Network.
With the current draft 2024 budget that the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit has sent for discussion to the Chamber of Deputies, the amount that would be allocated for each hectare of ANP is 10.7 pesos, warned the Nossa coalition, a group of civil society organizations related to the environment, including Wildlands Network and Causa Natura Center, among others.
Budgetary support for the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas (Conanp), in charge of these territories in Mexico, has been in decline, when they were exercised at 26.5 pesos per hectare in 2016.
The current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador received 182 ANP at the beginning of his term of office, and today the country has 203.
The president intends to close his term with 43 new ANP, and thus surpass former president Lázaro Cárdenas, who added 41.
Chacón says that Nossa's calculation does not yet include the 22 new areas that the current administration intends to add to the 21 declared in this six-year term. “I still wouldn't want to count how much this amount (of pesos per hectare) could be reduced,” she said with concern.
2024 Budget
For next year, PPEF 2024 stipulates 983 million 546 thousand pesos for Conanp. This is an increase of 0.87% in real terms compared to the 2023 budget.
However, at the six-year level, the budget for Conanp has been falling, the coalition points out. In the period 2019-2024, the budget allocated for Conanp is 40.8% lower than in the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto. This is a cut of 5 billion pesos.
Conservation and management
Chacón also drew attention to what is happening in the Conservation and Management of Protected Natural Areas program, focused on ANP management programs, whose purpose is to serve as a governing instrument for planning and regulating these territories.
This program for next year will have 114 million pesos, a cut of 389 million pesos compared to 2021, the specialist warned.
“A reduction of 389 million pesos for a vital program; for a program that, in addition to Area management programs, also allocates budgets to scientific research activities; much of this budget is also allocated to study houses, universities, civil organizations that do biological monitoring, which also have a vital participation in taking evidence, doing science and gathering knowledge about protected areas,” said Chacón.
Another program that has been diminished is the Protection and Restoration of Ecosystems and Species at Risk, which had 244 million pesos in 2022 and by 2024 it will have 201.
This program promotes the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity, according to the report “Caring for what matters: The budget for caring for the environment and protected natural areas in the PPEF 2024" by Nossa.
Chacón explained that another phenomenon identified is that previously there were programs that were merged into a stock exchange, but that their budgetary amounts do not fully add up to the resources they previously had separately.
[See interactive graphic here]
Among its recommendations, the Nossa coalition pointed out the importance of accompanying the protected area with a public budget; preparing the budget; preparing the budget based on the budget exercised to reduce contrasts with previous years between approved and exercised; guaranteeing the return of ANP rights collections; updating studies of the financial gap of Conanp; and strengthening programs, especially the Prorest, which helps to alleviate the effects of climate change, among others.
Deputies have until November 15 to discuss and approve next year's budget.
*This article was originally published in Causa Natura Media.
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