US/Mexico: U.S. Senators Urge Action on Mexican Avocados

Proposed Certification Requirement Key to Curbing Deforestation, Abuse

(San Francisco, February 8, 2024) – The Biden administration should act on a call by U.S. Senators to work with the Mexican government to prevent avocados grown on illegally deforested lands from reaching U.S. markets, Climate Rights International said today.

In a February 7, 2024 letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack, and the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Senator Peter Welch and five of his Senate colleagues expressed concern over the “devastating toll of the U.S.-Mexico avocado trade,” citing a Climate Rights International report and a related New York Times article that document widespread illegal deforestation and unsustainable water use linked to avocado production, and how Indigenous leaders and other local residents seeking to defend the forests are being threatened, attacked, and killed.

“The environmental destruction and abuse fueled by Mexican avocado exports to the United States require urgent attention by both countries,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Climate Rights International. “Denying export authorization to avocado orchards installed on recently deforested lands would dramatically reduce the economic incentive to clear the forests or attack the people defending them.”