"Our entire jungle is going to be degraded": environmentalists and indigenous leaders denounce the devastation of the Mayan Train

By Albinson Linares, Valeria León and Carmen Montiel

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Quintana Roo.— The jungle reigns with an almost infinite greenery, from the tops of the trees to the bushes that abound everywhere, while listening to the song of the birds and the fluttering of some insects. 

It is a territory where nature rules, a sacred place for the Mayans that is impregnated with archaeological remains and ancient traditions until, suddenly, the freshness of the vegetation and all the jungle green ends.

And the ocher and brown desert of the devastation caused by the construction of section 5 south of the Mayan Train begins.

"If you're trying to protect a place, you don't do this," says Tania Ramírez, a speleologist and environmental activist, as she points to the miles of removed earth, stones, roots, and cut tree trunks. 

The area where section 5 south of the Mayan Train is being built, which will connect the cities of Cancun and Tulum.Noticias Telemundo

"If the train continues, it is obvious that all these places are not thinking about respecting them and they would be covered. That is like covering the veins of water, of the aquifer," explains Ramírez, 32, while explaining that the entrance to the The Dama Blanca cave, found at the beginning of April, was covered with the rubble produced by the infrastructure works.

The Mayan Train is one of the flagship works of the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and has been presented as a comprehensive project that seeks to "achieve the sustainable development of southeastern Mexico."

It is proposed that it travel a distance of about 948 miles through states such as Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo with an approximate investment of 9,800 million dollars.

"Regardless of the communication, the promotion of tourism, the transfer of cargo, it will mean the generation of many jobs now that it is needed. He calculates more than 80 to 100,000 new jobs with this work," said the president in 2020, during the first phase of work.

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One of the paradoxes of this megaproject lies in its very name, because many of the Mayan communities located in the areas near the train tracks have spoken out against the works due to the serious environmental impact they will have on natural wealth. that are crucial for the conservation of the Mayan jungle.

[Works on the Mayan Train are suspended due to lack of an environmental impact study]

"We know that the places where it is going to pass are very fragile. So the work is not viable because it is simply going to fall or, to do the piling, they are going to have to put these cement piles inside the caves," he says. Ramírez, who is horrified at the prospect of some concrete structure breaking through the area's delicate surface.

"The Train Goes"

A unique feature of the geography of these regions of Quintana Roo and Yucatán is that it is located on a large platform of calcareous rocks that, for millions of years, has emerged from the Caribbean Sea.

Also known as the Yucatan slab, it has few bodies of surface water but abundant underground rivers and cenotes, very deep water wells, which are one of the great tourist attractions in the area. 

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"There will be a whole urban growth when we don't have enough drinking water, or minimum services. We believe that it will have a greater impact and it will degrade our entire forest much faster, and everything we have," warns Ramírez, while pointing out various points around the machines used for deforestation where there are other hidden caves and cenotes.

It was planned that section 5, which will connect the cities of Cancun and Tulum, would be built next to the highway that already exists between the two towns, so it is an area that has already been impacted.

But, for Ramírez and other environmental defenders,

, in an area rich in cenotes and cave systems such as Sac Actún and Garra de Jaguar. 

Valeria León, correspondent for Noticias Telemundo, and Tania Ramírez, environmental activist from Quintana Roo, on section 5 south of the Mayan Train.Noticias Telemundo

By then, more than 11 months of work had elapsed and more than 20,000 trees had already been felled in the other area.

"We are against how this section is being built and we are very concerned about how it is being done in general, due to the lack of [environmental] studies," Ramírez said. 

[Kate del Castillo and Eugenio Derbez raise their voices against the Mayan Train]

Numerous protests and dozens of lawsuits and injunctions have been filed to suspend work on the megaproject that has been criticized for, among other things, lacking the Environmental Impact Statement, a fundamental requirement to undertake construction that will alter large swaths of territory and ecosystems in the country.

The authorities recently admitted that four of the seven sections of the work do not comply with this requirement and are advancing the work with provisional permits. 

The most recent measure against the train was established on the 3rd of this month when a Quintana Roo judge ordered that the construction of section 5 be "suspended or paralyzed". 

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The Government of López Obrador has responded to these legal rulings with various strategies such as declaring the most emblematic infrastructure works of its management —the Felipe Ángeles airport, the Dos Bocas Refinery and the Mayan Train itself— of "public interest and security national", which would prevent them from being suspended by amparos and other legal processes. 

"We are going to confront these groups of vested interests with their spokespersons and achichincles, but the train goes (...) That agreement is validated by the judicial authority, by the Supreme Court, it is legal," said the Mexican president in his conference morning of May 4.

For activists like Ramírez, the work represents a lost opportunity for the development of the region and warns that it could affect the economy and indigenous communities.

"We should be very proud of what we have and praise and recognize it. This development model that Playa del Carmen and Cancun have been is not perfect. It has brought a lot of violence, drugs, and many things that we do not want to replicate in the communities. Mayans," she said through tears. 

Raúl Padilla, environmentalist and tour guide, at the Garra del Jaguar cave complex, near Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.Noticias Telemundo

"We are in time to avoid a catastrophe"

Raúl Padilla usually screams when he discovers something.

The stentorian sound of his voice cuts through the foliage of the jungle when he looks, spellbound, at a snake hanging from the trees or his laughter reverberates through the caves, amidst stalactites and cenotes, when in the gloom he comes across some finding that full of joy

"I think this is from a jaguar!" he said on a recent morning, pointing to a dark patch on the earthy floor of Garra del Jaguar, one of Playa del Carmen's most famous cave systems.

Immediately, she threw herself to the ground, took out a card with scales and measurements to confirm that it was a footprint.

"This is the footpad and the digitalis are these. There are also some tracks from other species," she said with a smile.

His love for nature is evident in the inflections of his voice as he narrates the beauties of the area's complex cave systems.

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"In addition to the biodiversity of species, there is the historical part. We have found shrines, stairways, altars, pyramidal bases, a lot of evidence of ceramics," explains Padilla, who with his foundation called Jaguar Wildlife Center performs valuable work monitoring fauna of the area by installing cameras that record the presence of animals. 

[A cartoon promotes the Mayan train project in Mexico]

"We are in time to avoid a catastrophe like that of the subway line 12 in Mexico City. These large vaults do not have the thickness for an infrastructure of freight trains with a speed of 160 kilometers per hour. It is crazy, what what they are doing, the truth is that they have neither head nor tail. We are at risk of losing the great Mayan aquifer", he affirms urgently.

In addition to the effects on the environment, the Mayan Train has also been highly criticized for the damage to the archaeological remains that usually occur when a work of this magnitude is undertaken.

Archaeologist Miguel Covarrubias, right, showing the ruins of a Mayan temple in Quintana Roo, Mexico.Noticias Telemundo

Earlier this month, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (Inah) announced that more than 25,000 archaeological monuments and other finds had been identified, such as 500,000 sherds or pottery sherds, in addition to 129 human burials —most with offerings— and 835 natural elements associated with archaeological contexts such as caves and cenotes.

Archaeologists such as Miguel Covarrubias Reyna have raised their voices to warn about the dangers involved

In the specific case of the Mayans, their populations used to be extensive and covered a lot of territory, so that sometimes the communities came together and this can be evidenced in the thousands of finds that have been made in the area.

"I think they should have considered it as a trans-exennial project, perhaps insured with a trust simply because the prospecting phase for 1,500 kilometers, well done, would have taken more than a year using the most modern technology. Because, finally, archeology became does walking," says Covarrubias who, although not part of the group of INAH archaeologists supervising the construction of the Mayan Train, has participated in the development of a database that exceeds 3,800 archaeological records in Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo.

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The archaeologist assures that the promises of progress made by the authorities have great nuances because the construction of the megaproject implies a frenetic development that could urbanize protected areas and help very little to combat poverty in the region.

He also warns that this has already been seen in Quintana Roo with the establishment of luxury condominiums and hotels that only offer "poorly paid and marginalized sources of employment" for people in the area. 

"This is a lost war. The president is very foolish and he is not going to stop even if there are injunctions or definitive and irrevocable suspension sentences (...) What follows, we will see in the next administration, to see who he's going to go to jail for all that, but the damage will be done, we're not going to get him back," he says despondently.

take care of the past

For some people, environmental and cultural damage is a personal issue.

Ignacio Pat Tzuc, 57, defines himself as an authentic Mayan indigenous and legitimate peasant, for which he knows like the back of his hand all the land devastated by the section of Section 3 of the Mayan Train that passes near Xalachó, his town of Yucatan.

Sadly, he points to the remains of some burial chambers where there were human remains of his Mayan ancestors, and then explains that his community was not consulted about the fate of those bones.

The authorities just took them away and they, the Mayans, found out about it on the news.

Ignacio Pat Tzuc, Mayan indigenous leader, in the archaeological remains found during the construction of section 3 of the Mayan Train.Noticias Telemundo

"They took out Mayan vestiges that are very valuable and when we came to see them they didn't want to pay us.

That's why we made the decision to take over that bridge they were building, we went on strike as required by law because they violated our rights," he says sadly.

However, it was not the only thing that they were not informed.

The indigenous leader says that the Government of López Obrador did not carry out the necessary consultation process to be able to execute the megaproject in Mayan territory, so they had to stop the train works for six months so that they would be paid for the land that the tracks cross. 

Pat Tzuc affirms that the authorities stole them because they wanted a payment of 30 million pesos, but they only got 13 million for almost 30 hectares, a sum that was distributed among 1,825 people, so each one got a little more than 7,000 pesos ( about $345).

With the laws in hand, the leader says that he will continue fighting for fair retribution for the rest of his life. 

They want to win 100% no matter what."

Ignacio pat tzuc mayan leader

Then he looks at the wasteland of rubble left by the construction and says bitterly: "We know what a megaproject is where people with money come and are capitalists and invest here, but they are not the owners of our land. They want to earn the 100% no matter what and they take everything from here."

However, not all the residents of Xalachó are in disagreement with the works.

David Reyes Rodríguez, ejido commissioner, says that all the people accepted the idea of ​​the train and the financial support from the Government.

His only regret is that the station was not located in his town.

"They should have put it here because that would bring great benefits. Xalachó has its handicrafts, baskets, embroidery fabrics and huipiles that could be sold there and make an economic contribution to this town, but no one spoke and they did not notify us," he explains. 

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Pedro Valle Centeno, another local resident, says that the train has been a positive factor for the economy of the area that was severely affected by the pandemic.

He explains that many residents got jobs as carpenters, bricklayers and workers, and he also believes that it will be something nice for his children who did not know "the old days of the railways."

Who knows what the government is doing?

pedro neighboring valley of xalachó

Although he does not work on the works, he affirms that many peasants have benefited from the aid.

But when asked what he thinks about the megaproject's impacts on society and the environment, he just shrugs and exclaims, "First of all, who knows what the government is doing?"

In late April, Pat Tzuc was walking along a stretch that is nearly three miles long and bisects the land of Xalachó, which has about 13,000 inhabitants, an estimated 2,000 of whom are peasants. 

In front of the site where the remains of his ancestors were found, in the middle of the reddish and ocher earth, Tzuc intoned a plea in Mayan that resounded through the devastated landscapes:

We were never informed of everything that was done here, so that's wrong."

"You can't be afraid to reclaim what's yours," he said vehemently, pointing to the destruction of everything around him. 

You can't be afraid to claim what's yours."

ignacio pat tzuc

However, Tania Ramírez and other environmentalists say they are afraid.

They cannot forget that Mexico, according to Global Witness, Mexico is the second deadliest country for environmental defenders: 30 murders were recorded in 2020 alone.

Organizations such as the Mexican Center for Environmental Law affirm that, so far in López Obrador's six-year term, 58 activists have been murdered.

In addition, the president entrusted the Mexican military with the execution of some sections of the train, as well as the administration of income and resources, which has generated great mistrust between various social organizations.

"For us it is a very strong concern. We raise our voices, with fear, because we live in a country where environmentalists are killed, imagine in a Mayan area with the military. Many rights have been violated," says Ramírez.