Mayan Train’s Environmental Impact Still in Question
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Mayan Train’s Environmental Impact Still in Question

Photo by:   Aristegui Noticias
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Pedro Alcalá By Pedro Alcalá | Senior Journalist & Industry Analyst - Thu, 07/02/2020 - 19:48

The Mexican Civil Council on Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS) published a study this week titled “Mayan Train, a New Push for the Deruralization of the Yucatan Peninsula.” According to a report from Aristegui Noticias, the study denounces the Mayan Train project as a tool through which the federal government seeks to strip indigenous and farming communities from their land rights to make sure they join more strictly regulated urban workforces and tax bases. The study considers this an effort to enforce an economic model on otherwise unwilling participants.  

FONATUR did not address the study but did publish a statement admitting that the project was finally going through its long overdue environmental impact evaluation. Throughout this process, it would respect communities’ rights to vote on specific issues, such as the project’s possible impact on the Cuxtal natural reserve near the state of Yucatan’s capital city of Merida. 

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Communities Organize Against Transisthmic Corridor

Following last week’s news that local communities managed to temporarily halt rail line rehabilitation works for the Transisthmic Corridor project until a new agreement with the government and the companies involved could be drafted during a July 5 meeting, 14 communities have now formed a unified front against the project given the severe lack of medical attention they have received to fight COVID-19.

According to a report from El Universal, the communities met in Juchitan and denounced the fact that SEMARNAT gave the company in charge of the rehabilitation works the power to audit their own environmental impact and organize a poll of the affected indigenous communities, which according to communities are two tasks that cannot be completed by the same entity.  

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SCT Denies Private Investment Losses From Cancelled NAIM

SCT addressed press claims that US$13 billion in private investments were lost when the Texcoco NAIM airport was cancelled. In the release, SCT denies this claim and says that no private investment was lost, since all the resources spent on NAIM at the time of its cancellation had been public. 

Mexico Promotes Aerospace Cooperation Between Latin American States

According to an SCT press release, Mexico hosted a meeting between member states of the Latin American And Caribbean State Community (CELAC) to promote an agenda of aerospace collaboration that could eventually create and operate a system of Latin American nanosatellites.

Photo by:   Aristegui Noticias

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