Focus on Arts and Ecology

Initiative: Mexico City’s Environmental and Climate Change Program

Mexico City is one of the largest and most populated metropolises in the world. Despite having only an area of 1,494.3 km2, equivalent to 0.1% of the national territory (INEGI, 2020), it is home to 2% of world biodiversity and 12% of national biodiversity, 770 endemic species of plants and animals, and a great variety of species of corn, squash, chili, amaranth, and beans. This natural and cultural heritage comes both from urban areas (rivers, urban forests, ravines and parks), as well as from the more than 87 thousand hectares that are classified as “conservation land” that represent almost 60% of Mexico City’s territory (natural forests, thickets, rivers, wetlands and lands worked by rural communities).

Given the deterioration and loss of this heritage, caused by the disconnection with nature, the growth of the urban sprawl and factors such as overexploitation, pollution, changes in land use, invasive species and the effects of climate change that have generated, for example, conditions conducive to a greater incidence of fires, as of 2019 a comprehensive policy was launched to regenerate the ecological conditions of the city based on a vision of sustainability, innovation and rights, derived from the Government Program of Mexico City 2019-2024 and established in the Environmental and Climate Change Program (ECCP) 2019-2024.

The first of the axes of the ECCP refers to the “Revegetation of the countryside and the city”, which gave rise to the revegetation strategy called “Green Challenge”, within which the planting of 10 million trees and other plants between 2019 and 2020 was established as a quantitative goal, with a comprehensive approach that covers the following lines of work:

1. Rescue of nurseries to increase production and planting
2. Recovery of native species through seed collection and nursery production
3. Promotion of gardens for pollinators
4. Strengthening of public space with the opening of natural protected areas for public access and the creation and rehabilitation of parks
5. Improvement of soil and vegetation quality through comprehensive management, attention to pests and diseases, diversification of vegetation strata and training for public servants
6. Participation of citizens, civil society and companies in revegetation days and environmental education activities

Thanks to the Green Challenge, the increase in the annual production of plants went from less than 500 thousand in 2018 to more than 10 million in 2021, which has allowed the planting of 27,082,593 trees and plants. The creation and rehabilitation of 16 large parks located mainly in peripheral areas with the greatest lack of access to public spaces, benefiting 6.3 million inhabitants. Additionally, 4,155 inhabitants of rural communities are benefiting in return for their work as brigade members in reforestation and ecological conservation activities, such as the plantation of 16.9 million plants only on conservation land, including the reforestation of 16,505 hectares in forests and rivers.

Adressing the urban challenge

Addressing the urban challenge

Breadth of the issue – How are the problem(s) that are being tackled by your initiative affecting citizens/local businesses or a significant component of the local wildlife?

Due to its geographical location and orographic characteristics, Mexico City is a system exposed to various climatic and hydrometeorological hazards. Because of anthropogenic factors such as overexploitation, expansion of the urban sprawl, changes in land use, soil, water and air pollution (the city emits 27 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) and the effects of climate change, the city faces problematic situations caused and intensified by the deterioration of ecosystems and the loss of its biodiversity.

There is a large amount of evidence on the intensification of the effects of climate change and the deepening of the conditions of the environmental problem in the city, which led to the establishment of very ambitious goals in 2019 to reverse these conditions, such as a 10% reduction in CO2equivalent emissions, compared to those produced in 2018.

The most important effects that directly impact the inhabitants have to do with material and human losses due to extreme rains, floods and landslides (between the years 2000 and 2015 there were 51 events of this type that affected 52,331 people), urban heat islands and temperatures extreme high temperatures that, combined with changes in rainfall patterns, generate conditions for a greater incidence of fires that contribute to the loss of ecosystems (from 2019 to 2020, the area affected by fires in conservation land had been reduced by 50% thanks to the increased resources for its attention, but in 2021 the affected area doubled due to a severe drought condition linked to the ENSO-Niña climatic phenomenon).

Depth of the issue – How seriously are the problems being tackled by your initiative impacting the life of the citizens/businesses/wildlife concerned?

There is great evidence on the intensification of the effects of climate change and the environmental problems in the city that led to the establishment of much more ambitious goals in 2019 to reverse these conditions. Between 2000 and 2015, Mexico City registered a total of 66 hydrometeorological phenomena, whose impacts are the most costly and damaging due to the impacted extensions and the affected population. The most frequent were related to torrential rains and storms, landslides, low temperatures and strong winds, which caused damages of 1,173,876 million pesos (56 million dollars), affecting 11,107 homes and 64,655 people (Source: National Center for Disaster Prevention).

Also, from 1991 to 2020, 12,332 fires were registered in the city, 10.6% of the fires in the country (Source: National Forestry Commission) and the temperature in the urban area has increased up to 5°C with respect to the rural area in the dry season of the year and 4% with respect to its surroundings (mainly urban areas with cement and asphalt structures).

In the city there are 105 species in some category of risk and at the beginning of this century more than 70% of the extension of oak and pine-oak forests had already been lost (Source: CONABIO; http://200.12.166.51/janium /Documents/13054.pdf).

It’s estimated that for each urbanized hectare, the aquifers stop recharging 2.5 million liters per year, in a context in which the area built on conservation land from 2005 to 2015 increased an annual average of 2.67%, reaching 5,518.69 hectares in 2015 (Source: IG-UNAM/SEDEMA, 2017).

(Sources: AIPH aka International Association of Horticultural Producers)

A lone huemul’s return to Patagonia is forcing a regional reckoning: should humans intervene to save an endangered species? 

By Rodolfo Chisleanschi, April 1, 2026

Newenche walked alone.

He travelled more than 300 km, navigating the ragged peaks of the southern Andes and crossing a national boundary, from Chile into Argentina. Without a herd, a territory, or a mate.

When the young huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) was first seen in Lanín national park in early 2025, the appearance was considered historic. His solitude itself was the cause for celebration. In this part of Argentine Patagonia, the huemul had not been seen for decades and was considered virtually extinct. Only once was there even a flicker of hope: a few footprints found in 2006.

A year later, Newenche is still there. Native to the Americas, the huemul is the continent’s most endangered deer with an estimated population of 1,500-2,000. Newenche’s journey has reinvigorated a scientific and ethical question that divides conservationists: should we limit ourselves to protecting what is left of the natural world, or is it time to intervene with active recovery?

Rewilding, and the risks of intervention

In many ways, the huemul survived the Andes but not human contact.

“It is an extremely trusting animal that is not afraid of humans,” says Sebastian Di Martino, conservation director at the Rewilding Argentina Foundation (FRA). That trait proved fatal. Combined with indiscriminate hunting, competition with cattle, diseases transmitted by livestock and attacks by dogs, huemul populations collapsed during the 20th century. As valleys were urbanised and converted for agriculture, herds became isolated. Scientists estimate that barely 1% of the original population survives today.

For some conservationists, that history makes a case for intervention. Eduardo Arias, director of conservation at Chile’s Huilo Huilo biological reserve, argues waiting is no longer an option: “In such sensitive situations, the time has to come to stop being so contemplative and take active conservation seriously.” Huilo Huilo began breeding huemuls in captivity in 2005, starting with a pair and adding another female the following year. A decade later, Chile authorised the first releases into the wild. Today, Arias says, around 50 huemuls live freely, forming seven family groups.

Tralca, for instance, was one of the males released in 2016. Newenche is his son.

This approach is often described as rewilding, or active restoration: the deliberate reintroduction of species into landscapes where they were once wiped out, with the aim of restoring ecological functions. It remains deeply contested. Critics argue that moving animals is not simply a technical fix, but a profound intervention in complex systems that may have already shifted beyond reversal.

Rewilders are broadly split into two camps, one being those who want to “leave everything alone”. The other believes the level of damage caused to ecosystems is so great that, as Di Martino puts it: “It is impossible to imagine that nature will recover on its own, as if by magic.”

Within the “active” rewilders, there are still divisions, particularly over the relationship between humans and nature. Some advocates start from the idea that “wild” ecosystems should function without human presence. “Our foundation wants to regenerate complete and functional ecosystems, which have everything they once had and, from that moment on, continue their evolution wherever they need to go,” explains Di Martino.

Others point to the complexities – or even impossibilities – of separating humans and nature. “Most protected areas are surrounded by productive areas,” says Alejandro Valenzuela, a researcher at the National Scientific Research Council of Argentina (Conicet). “So, what is being created is something prettier but it’s quite similar to a zoo, because it has no biological or geographical continuity. The species lack connectivity and all individuals become relatives of a few parents.”

Some question the impact of rewilding on rural communities. Advocates suggest nature tourism could be a novel economic outlet for the inhabitants of rewilded areas. But others argue it can lead to rural depopulation, and instead call for holistic solutions that consider socio-economic factors. 

The objections are not just philosophical or social but technical, too. “The manipulation and translocation of animals carries too many risks and must be carried out in accordance with the minimum guidelines established by the IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature],” says Valenzuela, adding that “at least in Argentina, I am not aware of any project that complies with them.”

Hernán Pastore, a biologist and wildlife specialist at the National Parks Administration in Argentina (APN), lists these technical criteria for rewilding: solid evidence that the species existed in the area; understanding of the causes of its disappearance; assessment of whether the current environment is still suitable; genetic proximity of the specimens to be introduced; and guarantees that the original population will not suffer irreversible damage.

There are other important factors to consider: local participation, ecological connectivity to prevent inbreeding and long-term monitoring. “Too often, media or tourism impact is prioritised over ecological processes,” Valenzuela warns.

Di Martino says Rewilding Argentina follows the IUCN guidelines. 

Intervening in altered ecosystems

Nestled beside Fontana Lake, in Andean forests to the south-east of Argentina’s Chubut province, is the Shoonem breeding centre. This is the only facility in the country authorised to work with huemuls. Opened in October 2018, the 100-hectare space currently has four females, two males and five juveniles living in semi-captivity. Its director, the Swiss biologist Werner Flueck, argues the species’ failure to recover is not just down to hunting or habitat loss but more subtle ecological disruptions. For instance, the deficiency of trace elements in their diet, such as selenium and iodine.

According to Flueck, until 150-200 years ago, huemuls followed a seasonal migratory pattern. They descended to the Patagonian steppes in winter and returned to the mountains in summer. That movement has been broken. “Human encroachment on the most productive valleys and plains has forced huemuls to live as refugees throughout the year in the remote heights of the Andes mountain range, where nutritional conditions are worse,” he says.

Studies carried out on huemul bones by Shoonem have revealed changes in the skull and teeth, caused by low levels of iodine and selenium in their new highland grazing areas. These changes have been detrimental to their ability to search for food and avoid predators. This in turn has contributed to the low average age of adult huemuls in the region, shrinking populations. When able to feed on the woody and herbaceous shoots of the steppe during winter, these huemels could theoretically compensate for such deficiencies.

Di Martino agrees confining conservation efforts to high-altitude refuges is a mistake: “We should make it easier for them to ascend and descend at different time of the year. Or start repopulating places where they used to live.”

Discussions around the creation of biological corridors are already underway at binational conferences between Chile and Argentina.

Lessons learned

Successful species reintroductions are not unprecedented in South America. For instance, the return of the jaguar to the Iberá wetlands in north-east Argentina. The first was released here in 2021; today, 50 jaguars live freely on San Alonso island.

Agustín Paviolo, a researcher at the Institute of Animal Diversity and Ecology at the University of Córdoba (UCO), is part of the team assessing this reintroduction: “The response in the food chain has been rapid, and is impressing us.”

The number of capybaras, the jaguars’ preferred prey, has fallen by 80%. Capybara behaviour has subsequently shifted, with herds avoiding areas where they are likely to be hunted. Grasslands have thus recovered, and areas once over-grazed by capybara are shrinking. While data is currently scarce, initial research by Adrián Di Giacomo, from Conicet’s Centre for Applied Coastal Ecology (CECOAL), shows fox numbers may also be declining – a boost for bird populations. “This change could increase the reproductive success of the Iberá collared yetapá (or Iberá capuchino), whose ground nests, eggs and chicks are preyed upon by foxes,” says Di Giacomo.

For advocates of intervention, these outcomes show how reintroducing missing species can reshape ecosystems altered by human activity. For critics, they reveal how difficult it is to predict or control such processes. Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands is a stark example. Deer, horses and cattle were reintroduced here in the 1980s. Following a particularly harsh winter in 2017, however, thousands were struggling to survive and had to be culled.

Preparing the ground

Partly to avoid such outcomes, the IUCN has argued that a species reintroduction cannot succeed unless the pressures that led to its decline are addressed. At Huilo Huilo, that has meant zoning territory, removing feral cattle, strengthening surveillance and working closely with local communities and schools. This happened before any huemuls were released. “This has led to a very significant change in mentality over the last 20 years,” Arias says.

A similar process is underway in Lanín national park in Argentina, following reports of huemul releases in Chile. Since 2023, the park’s authorities have moved to control livestock, manage dogs and regulate tourist access. “A healthy forest should have an herbaceous layer, an intermediate layer with shrubs, a layer of young trees and then mature trees,” says María Rosa Contreras, who is coordinating Lanín’s habitat recovery project in anticipation of the huemul’s return. “All of that was being changed by livestock.”

People, too, need to become reaccustomed with the animal’s importance via environmental education, she adds: “We want the population to recover its social memory and remember that the huemul is our native deer.”

Newenche’s continued presence – and his occasional solitary strolls into the outskirts of the city of San Martín de los Andes – is closely monitored. Whether or not others arrive here will determine if rewilding becomes recovery, or remains an experiment. For now, Newenche waits alone to see if more huemul will follow him across the Andes.

Rodolfo Chisleanschi

An effort to revive wilting trees on a college campus has grown into a forestry initiative where households across Rajasthan adopt trees as kin. 

By Moushumi Basu, March 26, 2026

Anni Devi is beaming. At her home in Manafarsar, a village in north-western India’s Thar desert, the 82-year-old welcomes her grandson’s new wife as well as another new member of the household: an 18-inch sapling of jamun, the Indian blackberry.

The tree arrives draped in a red veil. The newlyweds carry it to the backyard, pour sacred water into the soil and press it into the sand, as relatives chant and scatter petals. “May you be prosperous and beget many fruits and children,” Devi says, blessing all three. The bride and the jamun join a growing “green family” – neem, guava, moringa, mulberry, Indian rosewood and Indian beech. Each planted on an auspicious day, each treated as kin.

Across 18,000 villages in the Thar, close to two million families are now raising what they call their “green sons and daughters”. The idea is simple: if a tree is adopted as a family member, it will not be abandoned.

The concept was seeded in the early 2000s by Shyam Sunder Jyani, a sociology professor who was trying to save a row of wilting neem trees on his college campus in the Bikaner district of Rajasthan state. What unsettled him when he set out to restore them, he says, was the indifference – “the apathy of the so-called ‘educated elite’” despite practicing rituals of tree and nature worship in their daily lives, Jyani tells Dialogue Earth.

So instead of framing his interventions as conservation, he began characterising them as familial. With students and villagers, Jyani created the first “green family”, linking saplings to households rather than to official programmes. The shift was cultural before it was ecological.

Two decades on, more than five million trees have been planted across over 4,000 hectares, in a concept known as familial forestry.

Hanuman Ram Chaudhary, the chief conservator of forests in Bikaner, says that when patches of familial forests are nurtured, they develop into sustainable, viable habitats for native species. “Familial forestry has also [significantly] contributed to the increase in ‘Trees Outside Forest’ area in the state,” Chaudhary tells Dialogue Earth, referring to trees planted outside all wooded areas.

Reports from the Forest Survey of India show that Rajasthan’s Trees Outside Forest area rose from 8,272 square kilometres in 2011 to 10,841 in 2023.

But statistics only tell part of the story. In pockets of the Thar, farmers and educators say the landscape feels different. There has been more green, more shade, and a shift in how communities relate to the land beneath their feet.

Reviving the land

“Familial forestry is about the holistic healing of ecosystems by nurturing their health and strengthening the interdependence between habitats, flora, fauna and local communities,” Jyani says.

A recipient of the 2021 Land for Life Award from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Jyani began the initiative in 2006 with 120 households in Himtasar village, near Bikaner city. Carrying the message of “one family, one tree”, he distributed native saplings: Indian mesquite, valued for its fodder and sangri pods; rohida (desert teak), prized for its durable wood; and fruit trees such as jujube.

Initially, the undertaking was met with scepticism. Many wondered how trees could grow on desert sand. “This was a myth we dispelled through the traditional wisdom of local elders in desert ecology,” Jyani explains, adding that he leant on the knowledge systems of village elders who helped identify native grasses and species suited to the terrain.

“These days we exploit nature and deplete her resources, but here was someone who wanted to replenish the earth by creating multiple green families,” says 67-year-old Bahadurmal Siddh, who became a key volunteer in the movement.

Siddh now oversees around seven acres of familial forest on community land. “The secret to rejuvenating such ecosystems lies in first establishing a perennial cover of drought-tolerant native grasses,” he explains. Grass species such as sewan, dhaman (buffel grass) and karad (marvel grass) bind the soil with fibrous roots, prevent erosion and conserve moisture. As they grow and decay, they enrich the soil, creating a good base for seeds and saplings.

“This culturally rooted, community-led model of sustainable conservation is restoring degraded desert land and native biodiversity, integrating environmental care with traditional practices and everyday life,” says Prabhu Dan Charan, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Maharaja Ganga Singh University in Bikaner.

“We can now depend on agriculture as a sustainable source of livelihood,” says Onkarnath Yogi, a farmer from Lunkaransar village in Bikaner. “Simultaneously, the fruits, fodder and medicinal plants from our backyard… are supplementing our nutrition and wellbeing.”

Women’s participation

If familial forestry is reshaping the microclimate, it is also altering social realities, particularly for women long confined to the margins of public life.

Rajasthan has had a long history of gender inequality and the marginalisation of women, with customs such as child marriage and purdah (the veiling of women) still prevalent in many rural areas. “For [women], even visiting cremation grounds was a taboo,” said Kavita Jyani, a co-founder of the movement and spouse of Shyam Sundar.

She remembers arriving at a familial forestry programme in 2016 with her two daughters, to find not one other woman present. “But as we continued to participate, it encouraged other women to step out and begin breaking social barriers,” she tells Dialogue Earth.

The purpose of the movement, Kavita Jyani says, was not only to combat desertification, but also to address malnutrition especially among women and children, and to enhance food security through planting of fruit trees.

Today, women lead rituals such as Familial Forestry Day on 4 August. Saplings are offered at Hindu temples, distributed as roonkh prasad – a blessed offering that households take home as a new family member. During Vriksh Raksha Bandhan – the green adaptation of the Hindu ritual, with vriksh meaning “tree” in Sanskrit – women tie sacred threads called rakhi around trees, which they would ordinarily bind around the wrists of their brothers, pledging lifelong protection.

These rituals have also built a funding base. Since 2019, around 100,000 volunteers have pledged to contribute one rupee every day under Roonkh Reet (“custom for saplings” in Marwari, a Rajasthani dialect). Through Lili Laag (“green responsibility”), families donate during festivals and significant occasions. Jyani notes that the movement has come a long way from its early days, when it relied largely on his salary and small contributions from friends.

The trees are grown on private farms and in courtyards, but also in schools and public institutions. The familial forestry initiative team work with the institutions to identify suitable land for the trees to be cultivated. Students, teachers and staff then adopt the trees, taking personal responsibility for their care as extended “family members”.

What began as just a few neem trees on Jyani’s six-hectare college campus has grown into the Gandhi Institutional Forest, which he estimates as formed of more than 3,000 trees spanning about 90 native and other species. Across the Thar, over 200 such institutional forests now stand, tended to by students and staff.

‘A paradise of nature’

Perhaps the most visible example of familial forestry can be found at Dabla Talab, an 84-hectare reservoir and catchment once ravaged by three decades of gypsum mining. The reservoir had dried up after mining cut 20 to 30 feet into its gypsum-rich basin, notes Bhagirath Motsara, a village elder from nearby Uttamdesar who is also involved in familial forestry. Dabla Talab is revered locally as the site where Baba Jasnath – a medieval saint whose followers, the Jasnathis, still live in the region – was found as a newborn.

In June 2022, Jyani, backed by the district administration and local communities, embarked on a 4,500-kilometre protest yatra (procession) against the mining ecosystem.

Two months later, with the support of villagers from surrounding areas, he began planting native vegetation around the reservoir. For this effort, “I received death threats through intimidatory calls and messages”, recalls Jyani. Local media reported that Jyani and key members of the movement were met with lawsuits from individuals accusing them of encroaching on the land, with the cases later dismissed by the court.

To expand the planting effort, Jyani enlisted the help of more than 100 villages surrounding Dabla Talab. The sacred site was fenced off, and a more intensive restoration began. Today, over 50 varieties of native plants and grasses grow across the revived landscape.

“Dabla today is a paradise of nature,” says Pratap Singh Kataria, head of the zoology department at Government Dungar College in Bikaner. Wildlife has returned: there are jirds, jungle cats, as well as lizards and foxes. Dialogue Earth noted birds like long-billed vultures, Eurasian collared doves and peafowl circling above several restored waterholes. “The landscape now supports a complete web of life that sustains the thriving species,” Kataria notes.

To sustain the wider familial forestry movement, six public nurseries – each raising between 40,000 and 60,000 saplings – and 115 seasonal nurseries distribute trees free of cost. While most saplings are grown locally, some are sourced from government and private suppliers.

But challenges remain. Jyani points to the need for sustained funding, greater awareness, a steady supply of saplings as well as continued threats from mining interests.

Yet he measures success differently: “From conservation to conversation – where families dissolve differences over the exchange of saplings and share a sense of belonging.”

In the Thar, trees rise from the desert sand, growing in courtyards, besides wells and on community land. They have been carried tenderly, planted and raised as family.

Moushumi Basu

Latest World Meteorological Organization climate report says Earth’s ‘energy imbalance’ could trap heat in ocean for millennia. 

By Daniel Cressey, March 31, 2026

Record global temperatures have pushed the amount of heat stored in the ocean to a new high, according to the latest data collected by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).  

The WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report confirms that the global mean near-surface temperature (both land and sea surfaces) was higher during 2023-2025 than at any point since observational records began, 176 years ago. Last year was either the second or third warmest on record, depending on which dataset is referenced.

Humanity’s thirst for fossil fuels continues to drive this warming, causing sea levels to rise, ocean acidification, and heatwaves. Most of this excess energy in the Earth system is being taken up by the ocean. As such, ocean heat content reached a record high in 2025.

“Ocean heat content has been changing from 2005 to 2025 at about 11 zettajoules per year. And that’s roughly equivalent to about 18 times the annual human energy use,” John Kennedy, lead author of the report, explained during its press launch.

The heat produced by human activities is absorbed by different parts of the Earth system. Only 1% of this heat remains in the atmosphere, while 3% is absorbed by ice, causing it to melt. Slightly more – around 5% – warms the land. But the rest of that heat, approximately 91%, ends up in the ocean.

Karina von Schuckmann was a senior adviser to the report, and is a researcher at Mercator Ocean International, an intergovernmental body headquartered in southern France. She said ocean heat content is a fundamental indicator for climate scientists.

“This has been calculated from different observational data sets for the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean, from 1960 to 2025, and the results have shown that the ocean heat content in the year 2025 was the highest on record,” she added.

This heat is also penetrating further down into the ocean than in the past. It is therefore warming not just the near-surface waters but deeper, colder waters too. This traps it for centuries, or longer, locking in the impact of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions for a similar time period.

“The more we have heat captured away from communication with the atmosphere, the more we are moving also to timescales of committed climate change for hundreds to thousands of years,” explained von Schuckmann. 

The WMO report finds Arctic sea-ice extent was at its lowest or second lowest on record in 2025, with Antarctic sea-ice extent third lowest after 2023 and 2024. Ocean acidification also continues, albeit with large regional variations. The Indian, Southern and some parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are acidifying faster than the average speed. Meanwhile, global sea levels in 2025 were comparable to the record high levels seen in 2024.

Antarctic and Arctic sea ice is decreasing

Difference in annual sea-ice extent when compared to the 1991-2020 average, in millions of square kilometres, according to various datasets

Out of balance

This year, the WMO report includes a new indicator of planetary stress: Earth’s energy imbalance. This is the difference between how much energy the planet gets from the sun (incoming sunlight minus reflected sunlight) and how much is sent back into space via radiation. 

“There’s less outgoing energy due to the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases,” explained Kennedy. “More energy coming in than going out means that energy is accumulating in the Earth’s system.”

This accumulation was at its highest level in 2025, too. It is this excess energy that is mostly ending up in the ocean.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, pointed out that as well as the past three years being the hottest on record, the past 11 years were also the hottest on record.

Speaking at the press launch via video link, Guterres added: “Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every key climate indicator is flashing red.”

With a global plastics treaty still out of reach, experts say the region’s piecemeal bans on waste imports move the target without stemming the flow. 

By Isa Lim, March 27, 2026

In August 2025, Malaysian campaigner Wong Pui Yi stood outside the UN headquarters in Geneva and made an appeal to Global North nations: “Stop treating the Global South as the rubbish bin for plastic waste you cannot handle.”

During that meeting, representatives from 184 countries failed to reach an agreement on a treaty to end plastic pollution. But the need for one has not gone away, particularly for Southeast Asian nations.

The region became the top destination for plastic waste imports following a solid waste import ban by China in 2017. Imports remain at a higher level in some of the region’s countries, according to data from UN Trade and Development. Data from the OECD, a group of mostly high-income countries, found that Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam remained the top non-OECD export destinations for waste from OECD countries in 2023.

Some Southeast Asian countries have implemented bans on plastic waste imports. But experts fear this will only lead to a reshuffling of waste to other countries with weaker restrictions, perpetuating the cycle of what critics call “waste colonialism”.

This term, first recorded in 1989, suggests that the trade enables the high-consumption lifestyles of the Global North, with countries in the Global South left to deal with the consequences.

Exporting health and environmental harms

The global waste trade emerged in the 1980s as a means for countries with high recycling costs to send waste to countries where recycling could be done at lower cost. In countries like China, imported waste also filled a gap of raw materials to produce plastics, metals and papers.

Looser environmental regulations in importing countries made the plastics trade commercially viable. “They export the pollution to Southeast Asian countries, since we have less regulation and less control because of our historical context,” explains Punyathorn Jeungsmarn, a plastics campaigner and researcher at the Environmental Justice Foundation.

In theory, the trade is meant to create jobs while developing new revenue streams and recycling infrastructure. In practice, however, it has overwhelmed waste management systems in many importing countries.

Thitikorn Boontongmai is programme manager and researcher at Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand (EARTH). The NGO inspected several “illegal recycling factories” in eastern Thailand and observed waste simply dumped in landfills rather than processed.

With heavy rainfall, much of this plastic ends up in the oceans by way of the region’s long rivers and coastlines: six of the ten highest plastic polluting countries are in Southeast Asia.

In Thailand, the availability of cheap imported plastics has led to lower demand for recyclables. This lowers prices for the waste pickers who collect and trade these materials, Punyathorn explains. He notes that pickers have threatened to stop collecting waste unless the government bans the import of plastics. “If they stop collecting, then the waste in the ground and on the streets is not collected, and you have a situation where the entire domestic supply chain is disrupted.”

The plastics trade has also affected human health. An investigation by Greenpeace Malaysia around a dumpsite in Pulau Indah found hazardous chemicals and heavy metals such as cadmium and lead. The report noted that these contaminants may cause health issues including cardiovascular, respiratory and cognitive diseases. Between 2018 and 2019, when plastic burning spiked in Sungai Petani, Kedah, community advocates reported a 30% increase in cases of respiratory diseases.

Southeast Asia pushes back

In response to their environmental impacts, several Southeast Asian countries have rolled out restrictions and bans on waste imports. In January 2025, the Thai and Indonesian governments announced the immediate halting of plastic scrap imports.

Fearing the arrival of waste diverted from those countries, Malaysia restricted the inflow of plastic waste. In July 2025, it banned shipments from countries not party to the Basel Convention on the waste trade. A further ban in February 2026 forbade the import of e-waste, introduced shortly after a six-month blanket moratorium on all types of waste import was proposed.

Sedat Gündoğdu, a marine biologist and member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, says complete bans work because “shipping companies will avoid carrying any kind of waste to your country. This is what China did”. But some activists and experts note that bans have not always stopped imports. Thitikorn says EARTH had seen cases of imported plastic waste being declared as something else in Thailand. Campaigners in Indonesia have also documented paper scrap imports being contaminated with plastic, with up to 30% of the import being plastic. These have been sold to brokers or burned as fuel.

“At the end of the day, when it comes to a local level,” Punyathorn says, authorities with power to regulate or permit certain things coming in “may have vested interests that allow them to just… circumvent these [bans]”.

Lukas Fort, who researches Indonesia’s environmental governance at the University of Copenhagen, tells Dialogue Earth that the recycling industry’s dependence on imported plastics “raises the possibility that imports may continue in some form if enforcement is uneven”. He says this is especially so due to the often competing interests of government bodies, for instance the environment ministry and the trade or industry ministry.

Even if bans are effectively implemented, campaigners raised concerns that they would just change where plastic waste ends up. “Every year it’s a new destination,” says Kaustubh Thapa, a post-doctorate researcher at Radboud University’s Faculty of Environmental Science. “Waste traders always will find [new] destinations to exploit.”

An example of this can be seen in 2023, as plastic waste import restrictions were tightening in countries like Thailand. An investigation into customs data during this period revealed that much misreported waste from Europe and North America had been illegally dumped in war-torn Myanmar, transiting through Thailand.

Though Punyathorn thinks the effectiveness of restrictions are limited, he is hopeful about other measures being considered. In Thailand, these include the Sustainable Packaging Act, in which producers will be responsible for post-consumption management of waste, such as recovery and recycling. This act, along with proposed policies on circular economy and a pollution register, show that there is a “growing momentum towards trying to use domestic waste rather than imports”, he notes.

The global plastics treaty

As Southeast Asia deals with the continued influx of imported plastic waste, a global plastics treaty still hangs in the balance. The most recent round of negotiations in Geneva in August 2025 ended with a weakened draft text. Chief among the challenges faced were efforts by oil-producing states to block measures to curb plastic production and regulate chemical additives to plastic.

Even nations pushing for an ambitious treaty have avoided confronting the waste trade directly, Gündoğdu notes, referring to member states of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution (HAC). “How can a high-ambition group not be ‘high-ambitious’ about strict control of plastic waste trade to [countries in] Africa and other countries?” he says, noting that European HAC members are some of the largest plastic exporters to developing countries. Similarly, some Southeast Asian states have had to balance their petrochemical industry ambitions with resolving the negative impacts of imported waste.

“The last negotiation left off on a very uncertain note,” says Punyathorn, highlighting the resignation of former treaty chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso after nations were unable to agree on two drafts he proposed. Since Dialogue Earth spoke to Punyathorn, a new chair was elected, revitalising hopes of momentum towards an effective treaty.

Existing international legislation could provide a guideline for what an effective plastics treaty could look like. In 2019, the Basel Convention was amended to strengthen control of the transboundary movement of plastic waste, notably requiring prior informed consent before such waste crosses borders.

However, being voluntary, the convention is insufficient, says Gündoğdu. A treaty should address the waste trade in a manner aligned with the convention, while consolidating the existing codes for hazardous, non-hazardous and plastics under a single definition of plastic waste to make it more difficult to exploit loopholes, he notes.

One of the key dividing lines in the negotiations – for which next official rounds are anticipated at end-2026 or early 2027 – is whether the treaty will include a cap on plastic production, which is where the harms of the waste trade begin, Punyathorn says.

He explains that countries with more natural gas and oil than needed for energy production will use it to produce plastics, particularly disposable single-use items such as bags, spoons and straws, in order to flush out a high supply as quickly as possible. Once disposed of, these low-quality plastics are harder to collect, recycle and manage, and so are often exported to poorer countries.

He says the best way to stop this is to turn off the fossil fuel tap causing this overflow, “make plastics more expensive, and then you would only have necessary products that can be properly managed throughout the value chain”.