“No tree is going to be thrown down, not even one to build the Mayan Train,” as the President of the Republic assured in 2018. Four years later, 20,000 trees have been felled in vain to build section 5, plain and simple because Obrador and his team decided that the train will no longer pass through there, because that land is very complex and, if it were built there, their capricious work would not be ready when the Lord wants it.
In this section of the Mayan Train that goes from Cancun to Playa del Carmen, the works caused the felling of 20 thousand trees and an investment of 478 million pesos, the millions were thrown away and the trees are simply gone, they disappeared. in vain as if they were objects that are absolutely useless.
And well, let’s remember that just for section 1, which was delivered since December 2020, 800 hectares were cut down in the jungle that runs from Palenque, in Chiapas, to Izamal, Yucatán. About 11,000 trees were lost in that area.
This, in addition to being an irresponsible, unconscious, negligent and abusive act on the part of the federal government, is ecocide. An environmental damage that results in the total or partial destruction of an ecosystem. An illegal or arbitrary act perpetrated knowing that there is a great probability that it will cause serious, extensive and lasting damage to the environment.
And why can we ensure that it is an ecocide? According to the Inegi, in the last three decades, Mexico has lost a third of the vegetal surface between forests, thickets, grasslands and humid and dry jungles. Worldwide, Mexico ranks fifth in deforestation, although some measurements place it in third place, along with Haiti and El Salvador.
According to the UNAM Institute of Geography, every year we lose at least 500 thousand hectares of forests and jungles. This means that in 90 percent of the Mexican territory we can find deforestation, the consequences are devastating and enormous, both in the short and long term.
And, as we all know, one of the main functions of trees is the absorption of carbon dioxide. The FAO, in its 2018 report, reported that deforestation is already the second most important cause of climate change, after the burning of fossil fuels, as it represents 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
But trees are much more to our planet than oxygen. It is estimated that 1.6 billion people. That is, 25 percent of the world’s population depends directly on trees for food and energy sources.
And it is very important to be clear that trees are a home for wildlife. It is estimated that 34 percent of the fauna that inhabits Mexican forests is endemic and that a large part of these species is doomed to disappear in a few years if deforestation continues at its current rate.
Initially it was said that the total area with vegetation of forest importance, which would be removed by the change in land use for the construction of the Mayan Train, would be 606 hectares, where there are 11 thousand 94 specimens of flora, and many species of fauna that are vital for the sustainability of ecosystems such as the jaguarundí, grison, Yucatecan gecko, swamp crocodile, several varieties of iguanas, yellow-cheeked parrot, the American stork, salamander, the Yucatecan sardine fish, the yellow-headed parrot, the howler monkey, the ocelot, the tigrillo and the jaguar.
Today we know that deforestation due to the Mayan Train will be much greater than announced, and even more so if they continue to make mistakes and change the lines. Taking away their home from people, animals and plants. Taking home away from humans and displacing them is vile and miserable, but taking home away from fauna and flora is ecocide and self-extermination.
#exaggerating #Mayan #Train #implies #ecocide