MEXICO

PROGRESS AGAINST THE WARSAW FRAMEWORK

NS/AP: Mexico’s National REDD+ Strategy has been operational since 2017 with aimed implementation towards improved territorial governance until 2030. UN-REDD continuously provides technical inputs to Mexico’s National Forest Commission (Comisión Nacional Forestal or CONAFOR) towards the strategy’s implementation.

FREL/FRL: Mexico submitted the final FREL to the UNFCCC and expects to finalize the assessment report in early 2022. A full version of the REDD+ Technical Annex was prepared and is expected to be submitted to the Convention in 2022.

NFMS: Mexico’s NFMS is operating effectively and has increased its capacity to report on land use change at the state level. At the same time, the sustainability of the system remains a challenge, leading to the exploration of opportunities to contain costs and improve overall efficiency.

SIS: Mexico has made continuous improvements in its safeguards approach, including updating its SIS, integrating the Safeguards Care Plan Tool and enabling more streamlined and effective reporting from the state level on risk and impact management. In addition, Mexico has started to prepare initial planning and analysis for updating its second summary of safeguards information

REDD+ IMPLEMENTATION

Forest solutions realized. Technical recommendations to involve private sector actors in key supply chains for sustainable production models have been provided. Within the mahogany, charcoal and candelilla value chains, support was provided to reduce barriers to sustainable use.

The NFMS has been strengthened through application of FAO’s assessment tool and improved access to Open Foris Arena. The performance of various temporal analysis algorithms (BFAST, LandTrendr and CCDC) and spectral indices (NDVI, DNFI and NDMI) was systematically tested in three pilot areas, leading to recommendations for the use of future protocols.

Technical support and inputs have been provided for Mexico to strengthen the National Safeguards System. This includes continuous improvements to the SIS, with integration of further information and tools on risk management (Safeguards Care Plan Tool), to help facilitate reporting from the state level. While the development of the second Summary of Information was planned and initially discussed, the report will be finalized in 2022.

Technical support and analysis for assessing potential participation in international carbon markets (ART-TREES) has been carried out, including analysis of gaps related to safeguards conformance.

Technical support and inputs on devel oping communication and training materials on safeguards were provided. This included reporting and analyzing information from the state-level, participation in a safeguards training workshop with Mexican states, as well as the review of materials for the updated SIS website.

Forest solutions rewarded. Recommendations to enhance environmental integrity of REDD+ results and facilitate access to carbon finance were delivered through an assessment of Mexican states’ conformity with ART-TREES. The systematic analysis of the standard’s requirements indicates high levels of conformance in Mexico, including the members of the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF-TF). As reflected in the draft REDD+ Technical Annex, Mexico achieved significant results between 2017 and 2019. The country shows continued interest in exploring options to access carbon finance.

While two jurisdictions in Mexico (Jalisco, Quintana Roo) submitted proposals to the LEAF Coalition, technical and legal recommendations on carbon rights and benefit sharing arrangements were stalled due to the pending legal reform. The need to enable transferability of ERs to third parties and corresponding benefit-sharing arrangements under market based approaches further stresses the value of advancing legal reforms to provide clarity on the rights over emission reductions (ERs). Progress on the required reform bill, however, is still pending in Congress and expected in 2022.

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

While COVID-19 had a continued restrictive impact on meetings, UN-REDD maintained progress by using online platforms for technical support. Still, the REDD+ Technical Annex, as well as the second summary of safeguards information needed to be rescheduled, partly due to COVID disruptions, to 2022.

CONAFOR continues to experience budget reductions, which further reduced operational capacities. Furthermore, CONAFOR underwent a series of institutional changes that particularly impacted the work on sustainable value chains and private sector engagement. UN-REDD, together with CONAFOR, was able to connect these activities to the 2022-2025 planning framework and address deforestation-free value chains from an integrated approach.

The approval of the reformed Sustainable Forest Management Bill is still pending, with impacts on the legal clarity for carbon rights and accessing corresponding finance streams.

GENDER AND SOCIAL INCLUSION

Gender equality is a key component of Mexico’s safeguards information system. As such, the tool developed to facilitate reporting across levels of government explicitly includes gender considerations in its design, application, as well as corresponding capacity building measures.

PARTNERSHIPS

Synergies with the work under the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCFT-TF) continued in 2021, particularly through GCFTF country coordination on LEAF submissions (Jalisco, Quintana Roo), as well as with the beginning of the GCFTF’s innovation funding projects (Jalisco, Yucatán). Further synergies could be forged with the work under the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), launched in 2021, and active contribution by CONAFOR as well as states in the Initiative’s governance body.

LINKAGES TO SDGS

The activities developed contribute indirectly to achieve some advances of SDGs 5, 8, 12, 13 and 15.