First modification:
Eleven environmentalists from Greenpeace chained themselves to the machines that worked on the flagship megaproject of the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Aleira Lara, director of Campaigns for the NGO, maintains that they have felled nearly 30 kilometers long within the Selva Maya, although the federal authorities speak of relocation and not felling of trees.
Chained to the backhoes. Thus, Greenpeace activists stopped the operations of the Mayan Train in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, in the Yucatan peninsula, for 12 hours.
The megaproject is one of the most outstanding programs of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration. His bet is to build more than 1,554 kilometers of railway in five states in the southeast, which have been among the poorest in the country. These are Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo.
Although the Federal Government affirms that the project will bring development and move the economy of the southeast of the country, environmental groups denounce that the construction of the railways affects the fauna and flora of one of the most precious ecosystems in Mexico. And it is that the train will cross part of the Mayan Forest, which is part of the second largest humid tropical forest in Mesoamerica.
The section that has raised the most controversy is number five. In France 24 in Spanish, Aleira Lara, director of Greenpeace Campaigns, explains that of the 121 kilometers that this part will have through the jungle, 30 kilometers have already been deforested, with a road that is 60 meters wide.
And it is that the federal authorities modified the original project. Initially, in that sector the train would be elevated, but later they changed it so that it passed at ground level. Later, they modified the route to be able to speed up the works and meet the delivery date. It was then that they took her into the jungle. In January of this yearPresident López said that “rain, thunder or lightning” they will inaugurate the Mayan Train at the end of 2023.
However, when he launched the work in 2018, the president promised that he would not leave “to cut down not a single tree” with the railway. Now, before the denunciations of deforestation, the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur) maintains that there is no felling, but relocation of more than 20,000 trees that were located on the Cancun-Tulum federal highway. This is one of the many complaints made by organizations about the possible environmental damage caused by the Mayan Train.
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