MEXICO'S MAYA TRAIN PROJECT— ON THE RIGHT TRACK OR OFF THE RAILS?

 

Protestors Against Mayan Train in the Yucatán

Tren Maya is an ongoing high-caliber infrastructure project laying 1,525 kilometers of railway tracks set to cross five states in southeastern Mexico, connecting Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. Depending on who you talk to, it's either "the greatest railway project being built anywhere in the world," (Amlo, Mexico's president) or "an attack on the environment and the Mayan identity," (Pedro Uc, member of the Assembly of Mayan Territory Defenders, Múuch X'iinbal).

At first the cries were but a whimper, with conservationists and the occasional archeologist or Riviera Maya environmentalist sounding alarm. But now, two plus years into its construction and the forest purge, the cries of elimination and contamination can be heard from as far off as The South China Post, Japan Times and New Delhi Times to periodicals and newspapers much closer to home. This 'feat' promised by President Andrés López Obrador (Amlo) has been both lauded and maligned in media coverage everywhere and continues to heat up.

Mexico's President López Obrador has promised the 200 billion peso project (9.8 billion USD) will provide a needed alternative to road and air transport for the "Mayan Riviera" and lift southeastern Mexico's economy which has lagged behind other parts of the country. The president's goal for completion of the train is December 2023, one year before his term ends.

Mayan Train Route

CONCERNS

Environmentalists, archeologists, concerned locals, and even the U.N., have voiced concern that the railway and its hasty construction will critically endanger pristine wilderness and ancient cave and eco-systems beneath the jungle floor. Portions of the train route extend over a fragile system of underground rivers, including the world's longest, that are unique to the Yucatán Peninsula.

The plan for the 910-mile rail is that it will carry both diesel and electric trains through the Yucatán Peninsula connecting Mexico's golden goose, Cancun, to popular tourist destinations like Chichen Itza as well as more remote, off-the-grid sites like Palenque in Chiapas. Twenty one stations with 14 stops comprise its total. 

JOBS AND ECONOMY

FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo), Mexico's tourism arm spearheading the project, predicts the railway will lift more than a million people out of poverty by 2030 in the creation of a whopping 715,000 jobs. 

But with the train already billions over budget and behind schedule, scientists and activists, according to Reuters which has closely monitored and documented the evolution of Amlo's flagship project, says the government cut corners in its environmental risk assessments in a bid to complete it while López Obrador is still in office.

U.N. CLOCKS IN

U.N. experts warned in December the railway's status as a national security project allowed the government to side-step usual environmental safeguards and they called on the Mexican government to protect the environment in line with global standards.

FONATUR however defended the speed with which the studies were produced claiming that, "Years are not required. Expertise, knowledge and integration capacity are required," in response to questions from Reuters. It also declined to comment on the U.N. statement.

CENOTES

The Mayan Train route cuts a swath 14 meters (46 feet) wide through some of the world's most unique ecosystems, bringing civilization closer to vulnerable species such as jaguars and bats. It will pass above a system of thousands of subterranean caves carved by water from the region's soft limestone bedrock over millions of years.

Open Air Cenote (By Journey Wonders)

 

Early on, July 2020, researchers from 65 Mexican and 26 international institutions signed "Observations on the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Mayan Train" claiming it would cause "serious and irreversible harm."

Said one environmentalist, "When you destroy territory, you destroy a way of thinking, a way of seeing, a way of life, a way of explaining the reality that is part of our identity as Mayan peoples."

The ancient Maya's descendants have continued to live on the Peninsula, some still speaking Mayan, wearing traditional clothing, and also conserving traditional foods and recipes, crops, religion, and medicine practices, despite the Spanish conquest between 1527 and 1546.

When interviewed by NBC Latino, Lidia Camel Put, a resident of the area being cleared in Vida y Esperanza (Life and Hope) said, "I think there is nothing Maya about the train. Some people say it will bring great benefits but for us Maya that work the land and live here, we don't see any benefits.

"For us, it will hurt us because they are taking away what we love so much, the land," continued Put.

When marines showed up to start cutting down trees to prepare for the train on the edge of the village, residents who hadn't been paid for their expropriated land stopped them from working.

POLLUTION FACTOR

For residents of Vida y Esperanza, the train will run right by their doors. They fear it will pollute the caves that supply them water, endanger their children, and cut off their access from the outside world. In Vida y Esperanza, the train will run directly through the rutted four-mile dirt road that leads to the nearest paved highway. FONATUR says an overpass will be built for Vida y Esperanza, but such promises have gone unfulfilled in the past.

SAFETY ISSUES

The high-speed train can't have at-grade crossings (where a roadway and rail lines cross at same level), and won't be fenced. One-hundred mile per hour trains will rush past an elementary school, and most students walk to get there. Equally jarring, the train project has actually divided the pueblo Vida y Esperanza in half.

Not far from where acres of trees have been felled to prepare the land for train tracks, an archeologist and cave diver, Octavio Del Rio, pointed to a cave that lay directly beneath the train's path. "The cave's limestone roof is only two or three feet thick in some places," he told NBC. "It would almost certainly collapse under the weight of a speeding train."

Crystalline pools or cenotes punctuate the Yucatán Peninsula where the limestone surface has fallen in to expose groundwater. Along with the world's longest known underground river, this area is the site of discoveries such as ancient human fossils and a Maya canoe estimated to be more than 1,000 years old.

FRAGILE ECOSYSTEM

"If built badly, the railway could risk breaking through the fragile ground, including into yet-to-be discovered caves," said Mexican geochemist Emiliano Monroy-Rios of Northwestern University. He has extensively studied the area's caves and cenotes.

"Diesel," he added, "could also leak into the network of subterranean pools and rivers, a main source of fresh water on the Peninsula." With less than 20 percent of the subterranean system believed to have been mapped, according to several scientists interviewed by Reuters, such damage could limit important geological discoveries. 

In 2022, López Obrador wanted to finish the entire project in 16 months by filling the caves with cement or sinking concrete columns though the caverns to support the weight of the passing trains, as reported by The Chicago Sun-Times. This could block or contaminate the underground water system, the only thing that allowed humans to survive in a land of fickle rain fall. "I rely on water from a cenote to wash dishes and bathe," said Mario Basto, a resident of Vida y Esperanza. 

Uncharted Cave in Yucatán

IMPACT STUDY

The government's environmental impact study for Section 5, a 68-mile and most controversial stretch that runs from Cancun to Tulum, states its environmental impacts are "insignificant" and have been adequately mitigated, Reuters wrote. The study adheres that the risk of collapse was taken into account in the engineering of the tracks and that the area will be observed through a "prevention" program.

However, dozens of scientists disagree, writing in open letters that the assessments are riddled with problems, including outdated data, the omission of recently discovered caves, and a lack of input from local hydrology experts.

"They don't want to recognize the fragility of the land," said Fernanda Lases, a Merida-based scientist with UNAM, calling the problems identified "worrisome." And adding insult to injury, the names of the 70 experts who participated in the government study were redacted from the publication.

Bulldozer Clearing Land in Puerto Morelos (Photo AP)

Monroy-Rios said his research highlights the need for extensive surveillance and monitoring for any infrastructure project in the region, and this has not happened. "I guess their conclusions were pre-formatted," he continued. "They want to do it fast and that's part of the problem. There is no time for proper exploration."

The railway has deeply divided Mexicans and the controversies surrounding the construction exemplify struggles developing countries across the globe face to balance economic progress with environmental responsibility, Reuters wrote.

LOOMING MILITARY

López Obrador has already given the military more tasks than any other recent Mexican president, with armed services personnel doing everything from building airports to transporting medicine to running tree nurseries. The army will operate the train project once it is built, and the proceeds from that will be used to provide pensions for soldiers and sailors. The president said the army is among the most trustworthy and honest institutions in the country.

For more than two years Maya communities have been objecting to the train line, filing court challenges arguing the railway violated their right to a safe, clean environment, and that they be consulted. Back in 2019, the Mexico office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found that the consultations the government did prepare were flawed.

How will it all play out? As of February 28, the military-controlled Tren Maya S.A. de C.V. announced the passenger and cargo rail route will begin operations on December 1, 2023.

"It will be one of the best rail systems in the world," said Javier May Rodriguez, general director of FONATUR. "Its trips will be safe because it will have state of the art technology." 

December 1 marks the date of the fifth year anniversary of Amlo's presidency. Auspicious timing? Or not. Time will tell. 

Cenote Choo-Ha in Yucatán (Photo Sandra Salvadó)

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

THE THREE SISTERS, THE MILPA GROWING SYSTEM AND THE GENIUS OF INDIGENOUS AGRICULTURE

The Three Sisters (By National Agriculture Archive)

THE THREE SISTERS—CORN, BEANS, SQUASH

Native peoples speak of this type of agriculture—corn, beans and squash— as the three sisters. In Robin Wall Kimmerer's popular classic, Braiding Sweetgrass, the author explains how these three vegetables got the label. These plants together, she says, feed the people, feed the land, and feed the imagination.

There are many stories about how the three sisters came into being and each of them acknowledges these plants as sisters. One take on the story tells of a long winter when people were dropping from hunger. Three women came to a villager's dwelling on a snowy night. One was a tall woman dressed in yellow with long flowing hair. The second wore green and the third was robed in orange.

They came to shelter by the fire. Even though food was scarce, the visiting strangers were fed generously, with their hosts sharing what little they had left. In gratitude for their generosity, the three revealed their true identities—corn, beans and squash—and gave themselves to the people in a bundle of seeds so that they would never go hungry again.

THE GENIUS OF INDIGENOUS AGRICULTURE

For millennia, from Mexico to Montana, women mound up the earth each spring and place the seeds of these plants into the ground, all in the same square foot of soil. It's called the genius of indigenous agriculture. In mid-May, after planting, the corn seed takes water quickly and is the first of the three to emerge from the ground. Drinking in soil and water, the bean seed swells and sends its roots deep down. It breaks the soil to join the corn, which by that time has already grown six inches tall.

Squash takes its time—it is the slow sister. It may be a long while before the first stems poke up, still caught in their seed coat until the leaves split and break free, says Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass.

These three vegetables are not only the core of the Maya milpa and Central American Indigenous peoples. Native American tribes such as the Iriquois and Cherokee acknowledge these vegetables also as the three sisters because they nurtured each other like family when planted together. 

Milpas may seem mysterious to outsiders but they are a traditional agro-forestry system formed by cultures that create a spacial dynamic to maintain local biodiversity in agriculture. This farming technique has been found to bring continuity and security to a culture's food supply, nutrition, and even the social fabric of a village. 

TIME OFF BETWEEN CROPS

In the milpa system, it is customary to have years of rest in between planting crops. This leads to soil fertility, reduces the destruction of weeds, and helps control harmful pests. Because of the time between plantings of a specific milpa, the Maya, though not nomadic, required a great deal of land mass to achieve the proper platform for the milpa to produce at its maximum. In pre-Hispanic times, land was plentiful and these communal ventures—with family members and/or neighbors joining in both with work and the fruits of their labors—much resembled the structure of the Maya ejido system.

And it was not restricted to planting vegetables. The milpa was diverse and could include orchards, livestock and craft activities, even timber harvesting wood for houses, medicinal plants, beekeeping and hunting. All this made for a complex and varied system that retained sustainability and the use of the land's resources.

THE MILPA CYCLE

A Man and His Son in Their Milpa

The milpa cycle involves two years of cultivation and eight years of fallow or secondary growth to allow for the natural regeneration of vegetation. As long as this rotation continues without shortening fallow periods, the system can be sustained indefinitely.

So unique is the milpa system that after three thousand years, the milpa has received worldwide recognition from the United Nations, as noted in a recent article in "Yucatán Magazine."

UNITED NATIONS RECOGNITION

The UN was impressed by the ancient system for its complexity as a productive model that includes the combined cultivation of beans, pumpkin, and mainly corn, the basis of regional food since ancient timeSquash takes its time—it is the slow sister. It may be a long while before the first stems poke up, still caught in their seed coat until the leaves split and break free, says Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass.

These three vegetables are not only the core of the Maya milpa and Central American Indigenous peoples. Native American tribes such as the Iriquois and Cherokee acknowledge these vegetables also as the three sisters because they nurtured each other like family when planted together. 

Milpas may seem mysterious to outsiders but they are a traditional agro-forestry system formed by cultures that create a spacial dynamic to maintain local biodiversity in agriculture. This farming technique has been found to bring continuity and security to a culture's food supply, nutrition, and even the social fabric of a village. 

TIME OFF BETWEEN CROPS

In the milpa system, it is customary to have years of rest in between planting crops. This leads to soil fertility, reduces the destruction of weeds, and helps control harmful pests. Because of the time between plantings of a specific milpa, the Maya, though not nomadic, required a great deal of land mass to achieve the proper platform for the milpa to produce at its maximum. In pre-Hispanic times, land was plentiful and these communal ventures—with family members and/or neighbors joining in both with work and the fruits of their labors—much resembled the structure of the Maya ejido system.

Maya Man Working His Milpa (From Society of EthnoBiology)

The appointment of the "Maya Milpa as an Important System of the World Agricultural Heritage for their Food and Agriculture Organization" also recognizes the traditional milpa for its resilience to climate and modernity changes, long life, and contributions to the conservation of both the culture and biodiversity of the Yucatán Peninsula.  

THE MILPA'S IMPORTANCE

To sum up the importance and magnitude of milpas, author Kim Wall Kimmerer says it best: "Of all the wise teachers who have come into my life, none are more eloquent than these, who wordlessly in leaf and vine embody the knowledge of relationship. Alone, a bean is just vine, squash an oversized leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge which transcends the individual. The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together than alone. In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship. This is how the world keeps going." Amen.

With this final nugget, may I wish you the very best of fall seasons—our harvest season—and a joyful Thanksgiving.  

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.