Cancun, Quintana Roo.— The devastation of the jungle in southeastern Mexico is a fact, as the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) has exploded 11 minas open-air mining to extract stone materials used to build the Virtual Trends —which is promoted by Andrés Manuel López Obrador—, but illegallythat is, without the necessary permits and this means 700 hectares in Quintana Roo alone.
According to what is documented Journalism Factorythe Mexican Army uses a legal figure that does not exist, so they have not presented the Environmental Impact Statements (MIA) to the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat).
In which sections of the Maya Train are they building with illegal mining exploitation?
Since September 2023, when AMLO transferred from Fonatur to Sedena the works, the Army has illegally extracted stone materials in mines for the Mayan Train, the exploitation of which causes devastation to the environment.
This is used to build the roads, slopes and the layout that supports the tracks in the sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Mayan Trainwhich will run from Cancun, Quintana Roo, to Xpujil-Escárcega, Campeche.
Each section requires large amounts of limestone, gravel, sand, ballast and earth plates.
As the work progresses, the first banks of materials are far from the following works and, then, the Sedena opens other stone deposits so that the transfer time does not increase the costs of the works.
And although the General Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection states that in order to operate these material deposits, the MIA must be requested from Semarnat to change the land use of what are forest lands, the Army does not comply.
A provisional permit that does not exist, according to the law
And it is that since the military company Airport, Railway, Auxiliary and Related Services Group, Olmeca-Maya-Mexica (Gafsacomm), began to lay the railroad tracks for the railroad, exploits these open-pit mines with a simple “provisional permit” that Semarnat itself granted them.
But there is one detail: in the Law of Ecological Balance “provisional permits” They do not existso the exploitation that Sedena does of the mines for the Mayan Train would be in a way illegal.
Background: Illegal mines for the Mayan Train and the Tulum International Airport
Since last June of this year, an investigation of Latin revealed that for the work of Maya Train and Tulum International Airport, the Army opened 18 mines or material banks that devastated hundreds of hectares in the Yucatan Peninsulawhere layers of soil and significant geological and forest biodiversity were lost.
TO UNDERSTAND BETTER: Sedena mines damage 474 hectares of jungle to extract material for the Mayan Train in the Yucatan Peninsula
In an interview for Journalism Factory Luis Zambrano, researcher from the Institute of Biology of the UNAM He stated that During this six-year term, these environmental protection standards were completely destroyed. tacitly.
With a decree declaring the Maya Train a “national security project” and handing over the project to the military, the president opened the door for the army to incur in any violation of the laws.
The devastated Mayan jungle will not recover for hundreds of years
Just between January and July 2024 Sedena requested Semarnat “regularize”through the approval of the MIA of at least 11 “stone materials extraction banks” that it opened and exploited for the construction of the Mayan Train.
However, the devastation caused by open-pit mining already extends to some 700 hectares of forest in Quintana Roo alone.
The damage has already been done and most of these deposits had only 24 months of useful life, as Sedena itself indicates in its MIA proposals.
The destruction is so extensive that these banks of materials are, in fact, open-pit non-metallic mines, warns Zambrano.
“Their activity is catastrophic: They destroy from above and destroy from below; that is, they cause significant losses of forests, soil layers and geological material. Its recovery takes hundreds of years“.
In addition, it has been reported that by dynamiting these landsarchaeological remains have been destroyed which could have been invaluable to the history and culture of the region.
The ecosystem of the Yucatan Peninsula is at risk.
The use of a non-existent legal figure to justify the environmental devastation puts in endangering the ecosystem of the Yucatan Peninsula.
DCIM100MEDIADJI_0822.JPGBut that’s not all: it also shows how environmental laws can be ignored in large-scale government projects. Who will do justice? Who will stop this disaster?
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By the way, recently, the Constitutional Affairs Commission approved a ruling on AMLO’s environmental reform.
The initiative prohibited open-pit mining, but they modified it to allow it in certain cases at the discretion of the Presidency of the Republic.
Material mines They destroy huge hectares of jungle to build them; then, devastate layers and layers of soil to obtain the material.
With the extraction process abandoned, the landscape is left perforated, lunar, with large extensions of arid landas if they were desert islands in the middle of the jungle.
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But Habitat devastation is not limited to hectares where the mines are located: the entire square of the Yucatan Peninsula is karst soil, limestone rock, therefore, on the surface of these lands there are no rivers or lakes, the water flows underneath thanks to the porosity of the soil.
So modifying this ecosystem has consequences. Any damage to the underground network of rivers and lakes will have an impact on the entire region.
“Blowing up the ground, like these mines do, is to destroy the ecosystem. The only thing you leave is the substrate.
“If you plant a little plant, no matter how much fertilizer you put on it, it will die.” in the short term because the ecosystem first has to regenerate its soil before it can support life.
“The destruction is very large. Therefore, mining of any kind is the most destructive activity we have on the planet.”
Destruction of archaeological remains by the Mayan Train
In this regard, the biologist and speleologist Roberto Rojocoordinator of Urban Cenoteswho has explored the caves, caverns and cenotes affected by the construction of the elevated bridge over which the Mayan Train will run, highlights the destruction of archaeological remains.
READ: Maya Train ran over 200 vestiges in the Yucatan Peninsula: INAH researcher
“I have friends who worked on Section 7 of the Mayan Train and they described to me how they blew up entire hills with the dynamite they placed there.. When it exploded, archaeological remains were thrown out of some mountains. that was inside. That, in addition to the large areas of vegetation that were destroyed.”
Commented for Journalism Factory that just in June, the biologist attended a meeting on the Ecological Management Plan of the municipality of Solidaridad, where Playa del Carmen is located.
Sedena illegally mines for the Mayan Train; this is how it devastates the jungle VIDEO
There, the mayor reported that, in addition to the mines operated by the Army and only in this municipality, There are 114 private open-pit mines who also sell stone materials to the Mayan Train; Only three have the appropriate permits to operate.
“¡This is a high alert! The construction of the train began without permits for a change of land use and without the environmental impact assessments required by law. How can you now assess the environmental impact if you don’t know what you lost because you didn’t do the study before the area became desert?
More than a thousand hectares in Quintana Roo and Yucatan
Los scientistsanthropologists and environmentalists who have denounced the devastation of the jungle and the affecting a large part of the Great Mayan Aquifer with the destruction of caverns, caves and cenotes.
They estimate that little more than a thousand hectares, only in Quintana Roo and Yucatan, have been devastated with the exploitation of the mines of Sedena that extract materials causing devastation of natural resources.
“We are sitting in the front row to see the last healthy forests disappear Mexico. If that happens, we will have a loss of biodiversity, alteration of underground systems, exposure of groundwater and changes in underground dynamics. It is not a game. They have fractured this ecosystem.
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2024-08-27 15:36:09
