Cancún received the Tree Cities of the World 2025 distinction from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Arbor Day Foundation, city officials said Tuesday.
The recognition places Cancún inside an international urban forestry network that evaluates how cities manage, protect, and expand their urban tree canopy. City officials tied the award to Arboriza Cancún, a local program that aims to plant 11,000 native and endemic trees by 2027.
The announcement comes as Cancún continues to expand beyond its hotel zone and older neighborhoods, making shade, tree maintenance, and protected green space more visible in city planning.
Municipal President Ana Paty Peralta credited city workers, civic groups, businesses, and the public for backing Arboriza Cancún. “This recognition is for the people of Cancún and also for our city,” she said in a statement translated from Spanish.
Fernando Haro Salinas, Cancún’s director of ecology, said the award places the city within a network of more than 280 recognized cities worldwide. The Tree Cities of the World program said its 2025 class included 283 communities across 26 countries and six continents.
What the city had to show
The award is not based only on planting trees. The Tree Cities program requires cities to meet five standards: a responsible tree authority, rules for tree management, up-to-date information on local tree resources, dedicated funding, and public activities tied to tree conservation.
Rafael Reynoso Valdez, Quintana Roo delegate of the Mexican Arboriculture Association, said Cancún received the distinction because it met those five criteria. City officials also said Cancún’s Tree Planting Committee is the first of its kind in Quintana Roo.
The local test now moves from recognition to follow-through. Cancún’s 11,000-tree goal depends not only on planting native species, but on keeping them alive through heat, storms, maintenance gaps, and pressure for more urban land.
Cancún’s best-known protected areas include Parque Ecológico Kabah, which has served for decades as one of the city’s urban green lungs. Across the region, pressure on Quintana Roo’s forest cover has grown as coastal development spreads inland.
The award gives the city an international benchmark and a public promise. The next part will be less ceremonial. Trees must be planted, watered, protected, and given room to grow in a city still expanding around them.
