Semarnat launched the National Environmental Restoration Program 2025,2030 in June 2025 to guide and coordinate restoration of degraded ecosystems across Mexico through 2030. The plan was unveiled at Mexico's Ecosystem Restoration Summit on June 25,26, 2025, organized by the AMERE alliance, the UN Environment Program, and Semarnat. Environment Minister Alicia Bárcena called restoration a central environmental priority and called on local governments, civil society, scientists, indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities, and the private sector to participate. She described restoration as an act of justice, territorial regeneration, and community wellbeing. The program responds to severe degradation affecting more than 30 percent of Mexico's land and emerged from consultation with over 100 actors including environmental authorities, research institutions, and community organizations.
Five pillars and targets by 2030
The program is built on five strategic pillars, including multi-level governance and participatory financing and monitoring systems. Targets include restoration of four priority water basins, the Tula, Lerma-Santiago, Atoyac, and Río Sonora, along with reservoirs Endhó and El Zapotillo. For coastal and marine ecosystems, the plan aimed to restore 5 percent of degraded area by 2025, scaling to 30 percent by 2030, focusing on mangroves. According to the World Resources Institute, the program identified 50 priority sites where work was to begin in 2025, with 28 additional sites for 2026.
Planting in Oaxaca
At a national reforestation day in Oaxaca in July 2026, Bárcena announced that the government would reforest 32,764 hectares with 15.5 million plants during 2025 and 2026 as part of its forest policy. The campaign is part of a national forest restoration strategy spanning 2,328 projects across 151,640.61 hectares nationwide, Bárcena said in Tepelmeme Villa de Morelos. Oaxaca accounts for 83 projects on 6,825 hectares with an investment of 250.5 million pesos. In Tepelmeme, 3,000 trees were planted on four hectares, including native species Pinus oaxacana, Juniperus flaccida, Agave potatorum, and Cercocarpus fothergilloides. At the same time, 31 reforestation events took place nationwide led by federal, state, and municipal authorities as well as community members working in the traditional tequio model. The day also marked 25 years since the founding of Conafor, the national forest commission. Oaxaca Governor Salomón Jara emphasized that community participation remains central to the state's forest protection strategy and cited tequio as an established practice of ecosystem restoration. Jara said Oaxaca increased plant production for reforestation from 8.5 million in 2023 to 10.8 million in 2025 and aims for 17 million in 2026.
A community project in Oaxaca from 2023
In the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, village communities restored a landscape of limestone rocky soils by planting 20 million trees, according to Zona Docs reporting in August 2023. The forest authority Conafor rated this restoration by 24 villages since 2019 in the Chocho-mixtec Communities Alliance as Mexico's largest environmental restoration, according to Zona Docs. Alliance president Manuel Juárez López, whose apple orchards are watered from the restored area, credited Conafor's support since 2003 as essential for healthier community life.
Conditions for success
Implementation requires political will at the highest levels of federal, state, and local government and adequate funding, yet Semarnat's budget was cut 40 percent in 2025. The program also needs a strong environmental legal framework and effective public policy, or it risks remaining an intention like prior government programs. Questions remain about how transparent public processes and free, prior, and culturally appropriate consultation can be assured for all planned restoration. Lawmakers from multiple parties warned of environmental budget cuts exceeding 36 percent between 2024 and 2025, with one deputy describing environmental representatives as starving.