Aerial view of the Bacalar lagoon in Quintana Roo.Hector Guerrero / EL PAIS
Behind the hotel boom and the
urban
boom
of the paradisiacal beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula hides the depredation of communal or communal lands.
In just three decades, more than 500,000 hectares of land of these types passed into private hands, including huge areas rich in flora and fauna and national lands where Mayan populations settle, according to a study carried out by the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry.
The so-called "agrarian mafias" are behind some of these operations.
These are made up of officials and businessmen who seek to co-opt local inhabitants or take advantage of legal loopholes to seize spaces with great tourist and urban potential.
This sea of brick began to spread after the amendments to the 1992 Agrarian Law, reveals the report.
The reform allows the alienation of lands in the ejidos, collective lands that in theory cannot be divided, sold or inherited, but that local entrepreneurs have managed to acquire through legal devices.
Since then and until May 2019, a total of 22,660 parcels, with an area of 192,600 hectares of ejido land, ceased to be social property and became private property in the States of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, which make up the Peninsula. , with an area of 181,000 square kilometers.
Another 355,304 hectares of common use were parceled out, "appropriated by various actors from the ejido, government and business sectors," the report warns.
The investigation - entitled Three decades of privatization and dispossession of social property in the Yucatan Peninsula - focuses on the so-called "agrarian mafias", which have power, influence and impunity in the area to develop urban and tourist projects that affect water resources.
"It is a complex network of people and institutions, many of them former officials of the agrarian registry who have very precise technical information on changes in property regimes and ejidos with potential for economic development," explains researcher Gabriela Torres-Mazuera, author of the report, in a phone call.
"Changes from social to private property, such as ejidos, are only possible when there is this articulation between people and institutions," he adds.
To convert these collective lands to private property, the investigation reveals the use of several strategies: they co-opt the members of the representative bodies of the ejido to obtain consent to parcel out even when the lands have forest and, according to the law, they are not they can divide;
they promote the creation of new human settlements in order to evade the restriction of land use change.
Companies that generate wind and photovoltaic energy have also made the inhabitants of the ejidos sign, without legal advice, usufruct contracts for up to 60 years.
“They are contracts that do not have the special formalities established by law.
In these contracts, the wind and solar companies resort to intermediaries, who are the ones who draft the texts and prepare the environmental impact statements, ”the report warns.
The lack of political will, resources and capacity are gaps that companies that set their sights on these areas take advantage of.
“We have needed a clearer statement from the Ministry of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development.
They are aware of all these issues, but there has been no clear focus that this should not happen.
Obviously it is important to attack the issue of corruption, but they justify themselves saying that with the republican austerity [promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador] it is difficult to change officials and expand institutional capacity.
Many civil servants have good will, but they do not have economic resources ”, explains Torres-Mazuera.
The vision that the inhabitants of the ejidos had a few years ago was that the lands were abundant, so "the ejidatarios accepted the sales, to the extent that these gave them access to amounts of money that they received individually," it was stated. explains in report.
However, the enormous expansion of the brick and the abuses of the business community began "to generate annoyance among groups of ejidatarios, even among those who in previous years agreed with the sales of certain areas."
As of 2016, resistance and conflicts arose within the ejidos in the face of the excessive sale of land, according to the investigation.
Torres-Mazuera explains that, in order to face this privatization of ejidal lands rich in natural resources, the authorities must guarantee a “decisive protection” to the communal lands with forest cover found in the ejidos, stop the processes of change of land use and strengthen legal systems for environmental protection. In addition, he says, a “new vision” must be created that sees ejido lands not only in terms of property but also as a territory that not only includes the ejidatarios, but all the inhabitants of these lands, including women and youth, who so far they have no active role in decisions. "Empowerment programs for rural women and young people are required, but we have not seen that in the new government," says the researcher.