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Mexico's Michoacan state releases avocado accreditation focused on curbing deforestation

Michoacan state, Mexico's avocado heartland, released an accreditation program on Wednesday aimed at assisting customers in the United States and other countries avoid those grown on unlawfully logged land.

The stamp of approval will go to avocados that are grown where orchards are permitted and where the land has not been cleared illegally because 2018 or had a forest fire given that 2012.

Avocado exports to the United States, the biggest consumer of Mexican avocados, have skyrocketed 48% given that 2019 and were worth $ 3 billion in 2015, according to U.S. trade data.

Need for the fruit has added to the deforestation of approximately 70,000 acres in the west-central Mexican states of Michoacan and Jalisco in the last decade, data from Guardian Forestal and Climate Rights Worldwide showed.

We wish to guarantee that the consumer ... has the certainty that it is an avocado free of ecological ruthlessness, Michoacan's Secretary of Environment Alejandro Mendez said at a. news conference.

The program immediately submits grievances to the state's. attorney general of the United States when, based upon satellite images, it identifies. avocado orchards that do not comply with the accreditation. requirements, officials said.

The state government can not block orchards on unlawfully. deforested land from exporting to the U.S. The program, however,. deals openness to U.S. business and consumers about where. and how their avocados are sourced, authorities said.

This is an extremely welcome effort by the Michoacan. federal government, but its effect will eventually depend upon whether. business pick to use it, stated Daniel Wilkinson, Environment. Rights International's senior advisor.

Activists have formerly estimated that thousands of. illegally deforested avocado orchards would likely go undiscovered. by the program.

(source: Reuters)