Angelica Enciso L.
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 18, 2022, p. 9
Hundreds of academics and citizens warned President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the Mayan Train project it will have a serious socio-cultural impact, since it puts at risk the survival of the ancient cultures and peoples that inhabit the region
. It causes worldwide ecological damage, since it affects the Mesoamerican jungle corridor and its connection with the Amazon basin; In addition, the manifestations of environmental impact are seen as a simple bureaucratic procedure and not as an instrument to protect the socio-ecosystem
.
Miguel Concha, Cristina Barros, Enrique Leff and Carlos Ávila, among hundreds of other signatories, have addressed two letters to the president. The first was in April and in it they explained the reasons for his opposition to the Mayan Train, such as that the train is actually a real estate and urbanization project with a responsible tourism flag, which seeks to be the engine of the peninsular economy
.
They also stated that in areas of the territory where the train is being built – which runs 1,525 kilometers through Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán – there is biocultural wealth and the largest freshwater bacterial reefs in the world, as well as karstic soil that forms the subterranean hydrological system of the Yucatan Peninsula, one of the most important aquifers in the country that contains 33 percent of the national water, and which is already affected by pollution.
This letter was answered by the legal department of Fonatur on May 31, but of the 20 points exposed, only one answered and with inaccuracies
. It is the one related to the public consultation and the previous studies essential for carrying out the work, they indicated in a new letter addressed to the president and dated July 11. Until yesterday it had 400 signatories, 100 more than the previous one.
In this document they detailed that the response was sent by Fonatur on May 31 only to the researcher Luis Zambrano, although that first letter was signed by around 300 people, and it is confirmed that the consultation was not made before the work, but rather is done and there are numerous indications that it has not been given in due terms
. They even recalled that the UN special rapporteurship in December 2019 warned of irregularities in this process and requested the urgent attention of the government in the face of the possible impacts on the communities by the Mayan Train.
In the second letter they mentioned that in that document the United Nations warns that the methodology of the consultation was not constructed or agreed upon with the communities, the majority of the participants were municipal and ejido authorities, people from the communities were left out, there was not always translation, when it was done it was not adequate and many people could not attend due to lack of financial resources, among other aspects.
They said that regarding the consultation, Fonatur assured, without proof, that it had complied with international standards and that 14,305 people participated, which is not even 10 percent of the inhabitants of the region of influence of the project, which amounts to around 142 a thousand people.
They also mentioned that the regional environmental systems have not been adequately delimited, which “does not even allow evaluating –and avoiding, where appropriate– the ecological damage and the fragmentation of the dynamics of life in those territories”, that is, the only point that was considered in the response of the legal director of Fonatur has not been answered satisfactorily
.
