Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
AI Summary:
The article critically examines Sembrando Vida, a Mexican social and economic development programme. The programme pays individual farmers a subsidy to plant trees on their land. However, the article argues that the programme undermines traditional agroecological practices that offer a more sustainable and equitable alternative.AI Topics:
In this article, we critically examine Sembrando Vida—a Mexican social and economic development programme that pays individual farmers a subsidy to plant trees on their land—through the lens of a new instrument in the landscape of international human rights law (IHRL): the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). Sembrando Vida purports to simultaneously advance efforts to combat climate change and to enhance rural social development, and the programme leans heavily on its promise to learn from “Indigenous” and “peasant” lifestyles to enhance its legitimacy. We interviewed people impacted by the Sembrando Vida project. Here, we draw on the evidence we gathered to contest its presentation as a human rights-respecting development programme, and to demonstrate that the programme is undermining traditional agroecological practices that offer a more sustainable and equitable alternative to combatting climate change. By analysing Sembrando Vida through the lens of UNDROP, we demonstrate that a project that purports to learn from rural and peasant communities in their stewardship of nature is a form of mandate system that seeks to nurse rural communities, as opposed to fledgling nations, into a particular vision of economic health. Sembrando Vida is, predictably, remunerative for private investors and state actors trying to develop the poorer regions of Mexico through a number of disparate large-scale infrastructure projects that traverse constitutionally protected common lands.
Chadwick, Anna
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listCardwell, Emma
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listGiraldo, Omar Felipe
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listKeller, Kate
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listLópez, Rosa
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listMcClure, Julia
Author
McClure, Julia (2024) The intellectual foundations of imperial concepts of inequality. Global Intellectual History, 9 (1-2). pp. 18-35. ISSN 2380-1883
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listRosset, Peter
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
See full publications listVallejo Reyna, Alberto
Author
Chadwick, Anna and Cardwell, Emma and Giraldo, Omar Felipe and Keller, Kate and López, Rosa and McClure, Julia and Rosset, Peter and Vallejo Reyna, Alberto (2024) Protecting, respecting, or violating peasants’ rights? UNDROP, the state and ‘Sembrando Vida’ – Mexico’s flagship reforestation project. McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, 20 (1). ISSN 1712-9664
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