At risk, more than 100 thousand jobs in six states for injunctions against the Mayan Train

Alma E. Muñoz and Angelica Enciso

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday March 20, 2022, p. 8

The amparo lawsuit against the construction of sections 1 to 3 of the Mayan Train, promoted by the Assembly of Defenders of the Múuch’ Xíinbal Maya Territory for violation of environmental law, puts 101,261 jobs at risk in five states of the southeast and in Mexico City, according to information from the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur).

A month ago, the Collegiate Court on Labor and Administrative Matters of the 14th circuit confirmed that while the amparo trial is resolved, the guarantee granted by the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) to Fonatur is suspended and the works of those sections that go from Palenque, Chiapas, to Izamal, Yucatán.

The suspension of the environmental permits issued by the collegiate court does not stop the work of the Mayan Train in sections 1 to 3. However, if the work were to stop definitively, they would be lost the jobs that were created with it, said Fonatur.

If the amparo proceeds, it would above all affect construction workers – engineers, masons, blacksmiths and supervisors – as well as quality control personnel, archaeologists and environmental employees, among others, in Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán.

Because it is an integral work, it would also impact Quintana Roo and Mexico City. In the latter case, it would affect personnel from the National Water Commission, the Federal Electricity Commission and the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

According to the agency, there are 3,565 jobs in Chiapas, 3,960 in Tabasco, 21,825 in Campeche, 39,180 in Yucatan, 9,900 in Quintana Roo and 23,641 in Mexico City.

In addition to this amparo trial, residents of Playa del Carmen and Cancun filed popular complaints with the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection due to the deforestation caused by the new Mayan Train route.

Semarnat has only authorized Fonatur to make an environmental impact statement (MIA) for this phase of the train, since the evaluation of section 4, which goes from Izamal to Cancun, has been suspended since December 8 because it required additional information from the fund, which has not submitted the EISs for sections 5, 6 and 7. Even so, works are progressing on section 5, from Cancun to Tulum, whose route was modified and already involved the felling of around 20,000 trees.

If the presidential agreement of November 22 is applied to this project, which declared the priority projects of the federal government to be of public interest and national security and instructed federal agencies to grant provisional authorization prior to obtaining permits to start projects, we will be faced with the lack of sufficient and necessary technical and scientific studies to support that they are indeed viable environmentally speakingconsidered Gustavo Alanís, from the Mexican Center for Environmental Law.

He added that one or more species of flora and fauna that may be in danger of extinction may be put at risk, of affecting a protected natural area under federal or local jurisdiction, in addition to the fact that they must comply, at a minimum, with the public consultation in accordance with the applicable national legal framework in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization and submit to the environmental impact assessment procedure.