Experts said that of the original 254,800 km2 of forest, today only 40,086 square kilometers remain due to the Mayan Train.
The emblematic project of the Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has caused an “ecocide” in the rainforest where it has destroyed some 10 million trees, according to environmental activists who warned EFE after a tour of the area.
“We estimate that more than 10 million trees were ‘killed’ in one of the healthy forests we have left in Mexico,” explained Roberto Rojo, a member of the organization Sélvame del Tren in Quintana Roo, in the country’s southeast.
The biologist and speleologist spoke in the middle of the works in Playa del Carmen, right among the machinery that has destroyed thousands of plantations that today look half-collapsed, offering a sad image in the face of the usual exuberance of the local jungle.
According to Rojo, this is only one of the damages caused by the flagship project of the president of Mexico, which includes more than 1,500 kilometers of railroad track for transporting cargo, tourists, and local passengers in the five states in the southeast of the country: Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatán.
From the beginning, the inhabitants of Playa del Carmen (Quintana Roo) knew that this area, where there are more than 1,800 kilometers of caves and two One of the largest underground rivers in the world, was to be an important point of the project, although the Government assured that the work would be carried out parallel to the road.
However, shortly after, the plans changed and the authorities decided to change the route to send it right into the middle of the jungle, with the consequent deforestation.
Faced with this, groups of environmentalists raised their voices to prevent the passage of the train at this point and to protect dozens of caves and cenotes (very deep water wells) affected by the construction of Section 5 of the Mayan Train, one of the most controversial of the project and which goes from Cancun to Playa del Carmen.
Rojo said that of the 254,800 square kilometers (25.4 million hectares) today only 40,086 square kilometers (4 million hectares) remain, something aggravated by the megaproject.
Specifically, she stressed that the lack of planning and knowledge of the area caused the caves to begin to be affected by placing 17,000 piles 1.2 meters in diameter at a depth of 25 meters to support the train works.
“That means riddling the Quintana Roo aquifer with unimaginable results, we do not know what will happen when this aquifer begins to be contaminated,” she stressed.
One of the main problems, said Aracely Domínguez, president of the Mayab Ecologist Group (Gema), was the rush to complete the work by former President López Obrador, which led to saving procedures that can have “very serious” consequences.
“It will have short, medium, and long-term effects that were not evaluated, that were not mitigated and that could have been mitigated in many ways if the necessary studies had been done to determine which was the appropriate route, where to go and where not to go,” the expert concluded.
Finally, activist Juan Pablo Alvarez G., stated on x.com that in addition to being the largest ecocide in the history of Mexico, it has been a multi-million dollar business for those who managed the project, that is, a small group of people very close the sons of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Más de 10 millones de árboles han sido talados para la construcción del Tren Maya…
— Juan Pablo Alvarez G (@JPAlGd) December 18, 2024
Además de ser el mayor ecocidio de la historia en México, ha sido un negocio millonario para quienes manejaron el proyecto, es decir, la gente alrededor de @lopezobrador_.pic.twitter.com/s3UmJA4Jjf
With information from Forbes Mexico / Selvame del Tren / x.com
