Lila Abed, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: “AMLO launched his flagship environmental project, Sembrando Vida, to reduce poverty in rural areas, combat climate change through reforestation and reactivate local economies. Operating in 20 states, it offers participants a stipend of 5,000 pesos a month ($250) to plant trees. Budget allocations for the program have increased substantially—from 15 billion pesos in 2019 to more than 29 billion this year. Yet the program has yielded unfortunate results. Because only bare plots of land qualify, farmers have chopped down trees and burned land in biodiverse regions to participate in the program. According to the World Resources Institute, in 2019 Sembrando Vida caused the loss of 72,830 hectares of forest. During the same year, only 80 million trees were planted of the 575 million projected. Many intermediaries responsible for delivering payments to the participants have been accused of…”