Up in the Tecate highlands, where the chaparral smells like sage after a rare summer rain, something quietly hopeful is taking root. Baja California has joined the national Jornada Nacional de Reforestación 2026, and the opening ceremony happened exactly where it should have: at a community nursery run by the Kumiai people of Juntas de Nejí.
Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda planted the first seedling herself, flanked by Kumiai leaders and officials from all three levels of government. It wasn’t a photo-op moment so much as a handshake with the land, a small gesture standing in for a much bigger promise: 35,000 native plants across 100 hectares of ejido terrain.
The species list reads like a love letter to the region’s own botany. White sage, mesquite and encino oak, all plants that have anchored this landscape for generations, are set to return to slopes that development and drought have thinned out over the years.
Why the Kumiai Are Leading, Not Just Attending
This isn’t a state crew showing up to do the work while locals watch from the sidelines. The Kumiai community of Juntas de Nejí is coordinating the effort directly, continuing a role they’ve held for generations as, in the governor’s words, historic guardians of the region’s natural and cultural wealth.
President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo joined the launch remotely and struck a similar note, pointing out that Mexico’s best-preserved landscapes tend to be the ones indigenous communities have looked after all along. It’s a sentiment that lands differently here than it might elsewhere in Mexico, since readers who’ve visited a Kumiai fiesta or eaten at the increasingly celebrated Kumiai restaurant already know how much this community has to teach about living well with the land.
What Happens Next in Tecate
Nationally, the reforestation push has already put more than six million trees in the ground, according to local reports on the program. Baja’s own intensive planting phase in the Nejí ejido won’t kick off until October 2026, timed to line up with seasonal rains that give young seedlings a fighting chance at survival.
It’s worth noting the scale of what’s still ahead elsewhere in the state. Experts cited in regional coverage say Mexicali alone would need more than a million new trees to meaningfully improve air quality and cool the city down, a reminder that Tecate’s 35,000 plants are a start, not a finish line.
For now, though, the highlands above Tecate have a nursery full of native seedlings waiting for October and a community that has been doing this work long before it had a national name. Readers who make the drive out toward Tecate’s Picachos later this year may start noticing the difference on the hillsides themselves.
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