The Calakmul jungle and the Bacalar lagoon, the next front of the Mayan Train: "We do not want to be another Cancun"

One of the pyramids of the Mayan ruins of Calakmul, surrounded by jungle. Alfredo Matus (Getty Images)

From the top of the great Mayan pyramid of Calakmul you can only see the jungle.

A dense mantle of cedars, mahogany and ceiba trees covers the territory, the largest tropical forest reserve in Mexico.

Unlike Chichen Itzá, it is difficult to come across masses of tourists there: to reach these ruins on the southern tip of the Yucatan peninsula, you have to travel for an hour along a narrow dirt road flanked by dense vegetation.

But the days of isolation are numbered.

With plans to open a Mayan Train stop near this world heritage site, the government expects annual visitor numbers to skyrocket from the current 40,000 to hundreds of thousands.

To Sara López the figure gives him chills.

First of all, she wonders where the water will come from for the hotels, restaurants and shops that will open to meet the demand of 8,000 daily visitors.

Because in Xpujil, the closest town to the archaeological zone, tap water only comes out two or three times a week.

Its 4,000 inhabitants have to manage to get it with tanker trucks and, those who can, through rain catchment systems.

“We don't have water.

Imagine for the thousands of people who are going to come.

I am sure that they will have water, but the population will not”, says this woman, a member of the Xpujil Regional Indigenous and Popular Council.

The Mayan Train has opened a dialectical and legal battle between the Government, on one side, and environmentalists and a part of the indigenous communities, on the other.

The first defends the economic benefits that the project will bring to one of the most backward regions of the country.

The latter point out the irreversible damage it can cause to the ecosystem.

So far, section 5 has attracted the most attention for crossing over the largest underground cave system in the world.

Sections 6 and 7, which also pass through places of enormous ecological value, are the next front.

The 500 kilometers of railway that go from Tulum, in Quintana Roo, to Escárcega, in Campeche, cross the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve.

The jungle that surrounds the ancient Mayan city overflows the borders of Guatemala and Belize in what is the largest green lung in the Americas after the Amazon, an essential corridor for the pilgrimages of jaguars and tapirs, among other endangered species.

In addition, the train will pass near the Volcán de los Murciélagos, a dry cenote that houses around three million specimens and whose roof is very fragile.

Bacalar is another of the red lights.

It is the municipality with the highest rates of deforestation in Quintana Roo: between 2011 and 2018, 24,500 hectares were cut down, according to an analysis by the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry and the National Forestry Commission.

The town, besieged by tourism and intensive agriculture, has seen how in recent years the colors of its famous 40-kilometer-long lagoon, the largest body of fresh water in the Yucatan Peninsula, have changed.

The seven shades of blue in its waters have given way to a greenish brown.

The use of chemicals in agriculture and waste from the tourism sector are behind the change, according to biologists, and the Mayan Train threatens to exacerbate the problem.

“When we started working in the Bacterial Ecology Laboratory 18 years ago, we did not detect ammonium or phosphorus;

it had that level of purity,” says UNAM researcher Luisa Falcón.

“By promoting deforestation and intensive agriculture, chemical elements entered.

The algae are growing because they have enough nutrients.”

Hector Ic, a high school teacher and president of the NGO Bacalar Consciente, declares himself "neutral" about the Mayan Train.

Development is good, but not at any price.

“We are growing in a disorderly way.

Only 30% of the city has drainage and everything else goes to black holes, seeps into the water table and into the lagoon,” he points out.

The ghost of the Riviera Maya, a little further north, is always present.

"Tulum was the maximum of ecological tourism and now it has very serious problems because they did not plan."

A group of tourists bathes in the Bacalar lagoon. Gladys Serrano

A legal struggle between the Government and environmentalists

The communities complain of not having been properly consulted about the Mayan Train.

According to ILO Convention 169, signed by Mexico, the authorities are obliged to carry out, before starting a project, a prior, free and informed consultation among the affected indigenous peoples.

The Government organized a vote in 2019, which resulted in 92% of votes in favor of yes and 7% in favor of no.

However, the UN criticized the process: the authorities only reported on the advantages and were silent on the potential harms, the Mayan translations were not adequate, and the consultation times were too short.

Romel González, a resident of Xpujil, defends that it was not a “real” consultation.

“We don't even call it consultation.

The one from Fonatur spoke less than 15 minutes about the project.

He only said that he was going to generate tourism.

When we asked them about the water, they didn't know how to answer”, he points out.

González and the Regional Indigenous Council have successfully promoted an injunction against section 7 for violating the right of the peoples to be consulted.

In theory, the final suspension issued by a judge prevents the Government from continuing with the work until the substance of the matter is resolved.

However, González claims to have seen personnel working in material banks near Xpujil.

Against section 6, there are no known successful appeals.

While the legal dispute is being resolved, the Government is awaiting authorization from the Ministry of the Environment.

It has presented the Environmental Impact Statements (MIA), which now have to be evaluated by the agency.

In the documents, the experts hired by the government itself acknowledge that the train will cause "inevitable" damage in the region.

In section 7, it identifies 29 environmental impacts, 25 of them negative, such as the loss of almost 283 hectares of vegetation cover.

In 6, there are 28 impacts, of which 22 are negative, and it is planned to remove 1,459 hectares of vegetation.

However, despite the risks, the studies defend that the project is "viable" because most of these impacts will be "temporary" and mitigation measures will be carried out, such as the relocation of the plants.

It is also proposed to build 264 elevated and underground passages so that the animals in the area can cross the tracks without being run over.

In any case, the document points out, "even without the implementation of the railway, the trend of habitat loss will continue to increase."

For environmental organizations, the measures are not enough and are poorly planned.

In section 7, the wildlife crossings are concentrated in just 108 kilometers of the 255 that the road has, according to a detailed analysis by the NGO Greenpeace, and only 13 of these crossings are for large mammals, that is, one for every 20 kilometres.

The NGO also maintains that the documents contain false data.

In section 6, there are 10 hectares of mangrove affected, instead of the six reported, according to a spatial analysis carried out by the organization.

For this reason alone, Greenpeace defends that the Ministry of the Environment should deny the authorization, something that seems unlikely due to the importance of the project for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Faced with environmental concerns, the Government has focused on the promise of greater economic activity in these forgotten regions.

The train will carry passengers and facilitate the transportation of agricultural products from the region.

However, in Xpujil, Sara López Member is concerned about what her small community may become.

She cannot avoid looking towards Cancun, which 50 years ago should not have been very different from what Xpujil is today.

“You go there and everything is in English;

they are going to destroy our culture,” she points out.

"Hotels and restaurants will come, but the work for women and young people will be cleaning bathrooms and mopping."

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