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Ivan Zuniga being interviewed by the TV news team.
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Toluca, Mexico, Nov. 5, 2007 – The Mexican police’s “zero tolerance” enforcement policy toward illegal logging is failing to protect its forests, a leading expert said.
Iván Zúñiga, a spokesman for the Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (El Consejo Civil Mexicano para la Silvicultura Sostenible, A.C. or CCMSS), said the government is recovering less than one percent of the wood that is being cut illegally. As a result, he said, Mexico continues to lose about 1 percent of its forest cover annually.
Zúñiga, the leading speaker at a news conference at the Cosmovitral Botanical Garden in Toluca, the capital of the state of Mexico, argued that communal ownership can help conserve the forests.
“The strategy most able to conserve and protect the forests is to empower communities to make good use of them,” said Zúñiga. Mexico leads the world in community-owned forests, he noted.
The forum was organized by the Red Mexicana de Periodistas Ambientales A.C. (REMPA), an association of journalists committed to covering environmental issues in Mexico. Attending the news conference were reporters and camera operators for 20 of the region’s news media.
Other speakers included:
--Jorge Rescala Pérez, director general of Probosque, a unit of the government of the state of Mexico that protects forests;
--Oscar Contereras Contreras, director of the a non-profit foundation for conservation of mountain forests in central Mexico where Monarch butterflies spend part of the winter;
--Ismael Rojas Escobar, journalist, REMPA member and lead organizer of the conference; and
--Miguel Angel Torres Guerrero, co-director of Periodismo para Elevar la Conciencia Ecologica (PECE).
The Toluca forum was the first of a series of conferences that REMPA is hosting in various states on the issue of sustainable forestry. REMPA, founded in Mexico City in 2004, was formally incorporated this year as a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization under Mexican law. REMPA works closely with the United States-based Society of Environmental Journalists and the International Center for Journalists. Together they host web resources for REMPA and other Latin American environmental journalists.
SEJ Toluca Story en Español
SEJ REMPA Conference story in Español
For details, contact:
Ismael Rojas Escobar:
ismael_rojasescobar@yahoo.com.mx
Rob Taylor:
rtaylor@icfj.org
Links to some of the stories to arise from the meeting are as follows:
http://www.portaldigital.com.mx/eltema.php? var=190
http://www.milenio.com/edomex/milenio/nota.asp?id=139319
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/87547.html