Fernando Camacho and Enrique Méndez
La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, November 26, 2025, p. 13
With the unanimous vote of all parliamentary groups, the Chamber of Deputies approved the reform of the Federal Penal Code to increase penalties for crimes against the environment, such as illegal logging, trafficking of protected species, as well as companies that dump toxic waste into rivers or bodies of water.
In the session, where opposition parties insisted that the reform must be accompanied by a sufficient budget to prevent these crimes, the plenary session endorsed two reservations. A joint effort of all parliamentary groups, to expand the aggravating circumstances in the crimes of occupation, invasion or change of land use of forest lands, particularly in protected natural areas (ANP), and against anyone who falsifies information to obtain records, certificates or certificates of environmental performance.
The second, presented by the Green Party (PVEM), so that, in addition to the sanctions already provided against the environment, an additional penalty of up to five years in prison is applied to those who cause the death of specimens of fauna classified as endangered, threatened or under special protection, especially when it happens within an ANP.
Intentional fires to change land use
After a debate of more than three hours, the opinion was approved by 460 votes in favor and was sent to the Senate for review.
On the platform, to support the ruling, the president of the Justice Commission, Julio César Moreno (Morena), pointed out that the reform – which recovers proposals from all parties – seeks to address the “environmental crisis” that the country is experiencing, generated by fires intentionally set to illegally change land use, and the clandestine discharges of chemical, biochemical substances and wastewater into bodies of water.
He highlighted that the reform includes an increase in penalties for environmental crimes, since currently the Federal Penal Code sanctions them with sentences of between one and nine years, so the punishment would now be two to 10 years.
Diana Estefanía Gutiérrez (PAN) emphasized that “toughening penalties, of course, is necessary, but it is not enough,” because “many times the law advances, but the budget regresses. Today we approve strong sanctions, but the institutions in charge of applying them remain weakened.”
Jesús Cuanalo Araujo (PVEM) highlighted that, with the reform, “a great step towards unity is taken”, but proposed to expressly incorporate that the reference to bodies of water refers to “lakes, lagoons, wetlands and ravines, in order to prevent them from being left without legal coverage.” He also proposed criminalizing the illegal destruction of the ecosystems of endangered species. However, the plenary session rejected them.
