Victor Ballinas and Roberto Garduno
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, July 28, 2022, p. eleven
The Permanent Commission asked the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) to send a report through the National Forestry Commission on the actions to combat and mitigate the forest fires that occurred this year in the country.
Said report must contain information on the restoration actions that will be implemented, in coordination with the different government orders, in the affected areas, as well as the strategy to improve the response time for attention and combat against forest fires.
Likewise, it asked him to analyze the feasibility of considering sufficient resources in the preliminary draft of the Federation’s Expenditure Budget for fiscal year 2023, with the aim of combating these phenomena in the country.
Similarly, state governments were urged to intensify conflagration prevention campaigns and reforestation actions in the affected areas.
In the opinion approved by the plenary session of the Permanent Commission, it is stated that in 2021 there were 7 thousand 337 events, which affected 660 thousand 743.57 hectares; and, as regards this year, until July 7, the registered fires affected 628 thousand 99.87 hectares.
José Alfredo Botello, PAN senator, stated that the neoliberal governments had 4,441 million pesos available to fight and mitigate forest fires, in contrast to what the current administration designated: the insufficient amount of 2 thousand 827 million pesos
.
The senators and deputies in the Permanent also approved a point of agreement by which Semarnat was asked to, in coordination with other agencies and government orders, consider the feasibility of extending the actions of the national strategy against illegal logging in the states of Sonora, Durango, Morelos, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Veracruz, and Puebla.
Deputy Kevin Angelo Aguilar, from the PVEM, stressed that the government strategy combats deforestation and illegal logging head-on, and protects the forests, in addition to being consistent with the objectives of sustainable development.
