Minutes of the meeting with CONAFOR (Comisión Nacional Forestal) on the forestal master plan for Mexico (Plan Estratégico Forestal para México 2025, PEF)
Helsinki, Finland 
written by the Finnish activists

DATE AND PLACE: 
10th of October 2001, 8.00 a.m., hotel Scandic Marski, Helsinki Finland.

PRESENT FROM MEXICO (Conafor / Semarnat):
- Eng. Alberto Cárdenas Jiménez (Executive Director),
- Eng. Carlos E. González Vicente (Regional Manager), and
- Lic. Pedro Ernesto del Castillo Cueva (Coordinador of Regional Managers).

PRESENT FROM FINLAND
- Ms Karoliina Auvinen (Coalition for Environment and Development), karoliina.auvinen@wwf.fi
- Mr Niklas Hagelberg (WWF Finland), niklas.hagelberg@wwf.fi
- Ms Outi Hakkarainen (Coalition for Environment and Development/University
of Helsinki), outi.hakkarainen@helsinki.fi
- Ms Hanna Matinpuro (The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation), hanna.matinpuro@sll.fi and
- Mr Thomas Wallgren (Friends of the Earth Finland, Forestry
Group/University of Helsinki) thomas.wallgren@helsinki.fi

BACKGROUND

- We (the Finnish activists) had received alarming news on the Mexican PEF from the Mexican NGOs, i.e. once again a Finnish consultancy firm had been making questionable national forest plans in a foreign country. Therefore, we were eager to meet the Conafor delegate from Mexico while in Finland, and the Conafor people were open enough to meet us.

NATURE OF THE DISCUSSION

- We sent a letter to Mr Cárdenas with four questions but later on decided that instead of focusing only on the issues of the PEF itself it is politically wiser to use (mainly) our short time with the Conafor men to express our concern about the lack of democracy in the PEF process (as this is the key reason why our Mexican partner organisations (for example World Rainforest Movement WRM, Colectivo Ecologista Jalisco, el Círculo de Producción y Consumo Responsable, la Red de Comunicación Morelos, Luna Nueva de Tepoztlán and la Red Juvenil de Promotores Ambientales) asked for our help, that we think our Mexican partners should get answers for the crucial questions directly from the Conafor itself.

- We expressed our concern about how ethically the Mexican government is implementing the PEF and how they are going to consider issues as democracy, human rights, community lands and environmental protection in that process. 

- We report here the relevant parts of the discussion under main topics.

BACKGROUND AND NATURE OF THE PEF

- The Mexican delegate strongly underlined that first time in the Mexican history there is an attempt to make a coherent plan for a productive use of the Mexico's forests, that until now the use of the forest resources has mainly been anarchic, that the jungle laws have dominated the scheme. They constantly told that the forests have earlier been seen in Mexico as a land resource for the agriculture, not as a productive natural resource itself. Their aim is now to wake the giant up, that earlier mainly some private foreign companies have taken real advantage from the Mexican forests, that in the countryside only agriculture and livestock production have been seen economically productive activities.

DEMOCRACY

- After our opening comment concerning the agenda of the meeting Mr González wanted to jump over the issue of democracy/openness/peoples' participation by telling us the PEF process has been open and democratic. However, Mr Cárdenas wanted to explain details about the openness of the PEF. He explained, together with Mr del Castillo, that:

- 200 groups have been heard or have somehow participated in the making of the PEF,

- a national hearing has been organised (20 governors participated),

- there have been state level committees (consejo estatal), members are: MP's, senators, and representatives from different sectors of society,

- a lot of information has been channelled through Internet,

- a thousand compact discs have been distributed in order to get comments on the plan, and Conafor laso has received comments from very different sources,

- six working groups have been organized to go through the PEF chapter by chapter,

- 13 regional meetings (foros regionales) have been organized, people have been openly invited by newspaper announcements, 

- "the PEF" has received 250 formal written proposals, which have caused widenings in the PEF,

- last of the eleven points of the PEF deals with follow-up of the results and experiences,

- evaluation will be made widely by the society, there will be national hearings (consulta nacional) where all the sectors can participate (researchers, villagers, a private sector, farmers...), 

- final words on this issue by Cárdenas: "The current PEF is a democratic document. ... It is not a perfect plan, but it will be reviewed every second year." 

- We told that we found the openness and effectiveness of the above explained hearing processes questionable, since 80 % of the Mexican forests belong to the poor, slightly educated and traditional social groups (small land owners, indigenous people and ejiditarios) who do not have easily access to the information flows used by the PEF (e.g. computers, newspapers....). Also participation in the public meetings can be very hard for most of these people because of the lack of money for travelling or relevant background information, as mentioned before. Because of these matters, we cannot be sure if the voice of the most relevant groups is or will be really heard in this process.  

COOPERATION WITH THE RELEVANT MEXICAN NGOs 

- We brought up the critical attitude of the five most important forest-oriented Mexican NGOs (i.e. Mocaf, Unocof, Unecof, Unprof and Profoagremex). We mentioned that in an article of La Jornada (25.7.2001) it was said that these five are demanding for representatives in the government organs taking decisions on the forestal issues. The Conafor men told that these five NGOs already has a common seat in relevant bodies of decision-making (in Conafor? Also somewhere else? We are not sure). The Mexican delegation underlined that they constantly work with these NGOs.  

LAND OWNERSHIP 

- Mr González explained us the Mexican land laws are very clear. Therefore, the current land ownerships are also very clear, and there is no reason to worry about the community lands ending up, somehow through the PEF process, in the private hands. He mentioned the article 27 in the Mexican constitution (reshaped in 1992), and according to our understanding also said that it is not possible to sell community lands. 

- Our strong reaction was, naturally, that the changes in the article 27 exactly made the community/ejido lands saleable property, and also the illegally made sales of land, for example in the outskirts of the big cities, were possible to be legalised after these changes in 1992.

- Mr González continued by explaining that the idea is not to shift community lands to the private ownership but to integrate the communities to be part of the PEF. They explained that 40 million USD will be used for plantations (??) of which a big share is for the ejidos, that they already work, and want to expand their work especially with the ejido communities. They underlined that the PAN is a government of change. Their work related to the ejidos have four central points: democracy, organization, training and information. The Conafor wants to form and support healthy leaderships within the communities.

STATUS / LEGITIMACY OF THE PEF

- We asked about the status of the PEF. Is it a consultant plan or a legal national plan for the next 25 years? The answer was not clear.

- The Mexicans underlined again that the PEF is the first attempt in Mexico to clarify the use of the forest resources with a long perspective of time. Earlier everything has been done at most in the frame of the "sexenios"(six-year long political between-elections periods), but often the responsible persons have even changed once or twice during that period. Therefore, the collective memory of the state institutions has been very short. 

- Concerning the social legitimacy of the PEF the Mexican delegate underlined they are already working with the most marginalized groups, and will do even more so. They are already working with 500 forestal municipalities of the country.

INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS

- We asked about the international players. Mr Cárdenas explained that their role is impossible to be exactly known, especially in the era of globalization. The Mexicans can not know what kind of role the big international players will take. However, an existing reality is the Nafta, and another reality is the need for investments for the lack of capital. However, they underlined that the PEF is a plan for Mexico, for benefit of the Mexicans. Therefore, he said, Mexico will be open in this process, but only wisely so.

CERTIFICATION

- The Mexican delegate saw certification as a very important issue and task. They want to speed up the certification process in Mexico. Mr Cárdenas told thousands and thousands of hectares will be certificated within next six years. 

PLANTATIONS

- The Mexican delegate said that they are going to use many varieties of trees in the PEF plantations, and thus not only, for example, Eucalyptus. The aim is not to destroy primary forests in sake of plantations. Mr González said, that it is not even possible to threaten the native species, since it is forbidden by the law to make plantations in the natural forests (?). 

- They also underlined that only one part of the plantations will be for pulp production, as many of them will be also for other purposes, as for medicines and silviculture.

AGREEMENTS

- We asked Conafor to meet a group of local Mexican NGOs' representatives to answer them directly the questions they had sent for this meeting, Conafor accepted this proposal.

- We also recommended Conafor to listen and respect the knowledge of the NGOs about democratic and participative working methods with the (Indigenous) communities (for example, Asociación Jalisciense de Apoyo a los Grupos Indígenas A. C., Ajagi). Conafor was interested in these contacts.

- Mr Cárdenas expressed his interest to be in contact with us regularly, like every three months, to continue this dialogue about democratic process and other aspects of the PEF. He said it is difficult at times to analyse objectively their own working methods and therefore it would be good to receive recommendations and comments from the outside perspective. He asked for our help in their difficult task. We accepted his proposal.

- The Mexican delegate also told there will be a big public meeting/hearing on the PEF in November 2001, where representatives of different sectors will be invited, also NGOs. Exact information on this event should be asked for.

- We expressed that we will follow how the PEF process goes on in Mexico, and according to the news we will got from our Mexican partners we will act in this end, i.e. if necessary, trying to influence on funding and agreements between Mexico and Finland on the issue.

- We think the meeting was constructive and useful.