Mexico's Peña Nieto signs water reservoir decrees

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Tuesday enacted a general law on sustainable forest development and signed 10 decrees for the declaration of water reservoirs, coinciding with the commemoration of World Environment Day 2018.

"[The law] allows the public policies efforts of two agencies, [environmental ministry] Semarnat and [agriculture] Sagarpa, to be synchronized and coordinated under the double goal of protecting our environment, our forested areas, so that we can increase our country's food production capacity at the same time," Peña Nieto said.

As regards the water reservoir decrees, the move will serve to increase the country's total volume of water reserves to 47.5% of total runoff, Peña Nieto said.

That volume amounts to 170,379m3 of water reserves for environmental and urban public use.

The decrees involve the rivers Santiago, Ameca, Pánuco, Papaloapan, Actopan, Antigua, and Grijalva-Usumacinta, as well as the coastal area of Jalisco state, and Guerrero's Costa Grande and Costa Chica regions, and the town of San Fernando, located in Soto La Marina municipality in Tamaulipas state.

The decrees will also help to protect water connectivity between the basins of each of the aforementioned regions, according to the national government.

pictured: Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto attends a ceremony to sign the decrees along with members of his cabinet. CREDIT: Presidencia de la República, México.