The 2011 budget for Mexico's Secretariat (ministry) of Environment and Natural Resources is insufficient to tend to existing and urgent needs, according to the watchdog group Greenpeace Mexico. In the budget bill sent by the Felipe Calderón administration to Congress earmarks 3.3 billion dollars for the Secretariat of Environment, which is 1.3 percent of the total national budget.

“For the federal government, the environment is waning as a priority. They can't reduce the budget like they are proposing to do,” activist Gustavo Ampugnani, coordinator of Greenpeace Mexico's climate and energy campaign, told Tierramérica.

The Secretariat would receive 7.6 percent less than in 2010. The new budget includes the creation of the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Program, with just 20 million dollars in this country of 110 million people.