USMCA commission to open environmental probe of Mexico train project

The trilateral Fee for Environmental Cooperation established by the U.S., Mexico and Canada has advisable opening an investigation into Mexico’s multibillion-dollar vacationer prepare venture on the Yucatán peninsula.

Environmentalists filed a criticism saying the Maya Prepare venture threatens jungles and limestone caves containing valuable contemporary water. The caves have additionally yielded among the oldest human stays present in North America.

The prepare is at present being rushed to completion. It’s the pet venture of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who desires it completed earlier than he leaves workplace in September 2024.

The trilateral fee was established by the governments of Mexico, the US and Canada in 1994, and operates underneath the USMCA free commerce settlement.

It has the ability to supply fact-finding experiences that could possibly be utilized in commerce disputes. It’ll achieve this if two of the three international locations agree; the U.S. authorities has all the time voted to go forward with such investigations.

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The USMCA commerce pact requires member international locations to implement their environmental legal guidelines, they usually may face tariffs or different sanctions if they do not.

The fee mentioned in a press release late Tuesday that the investigation will look into “the environmental impression evaluation procedures for the Maya Prepare venture, together with related research and alleged fragmentation of the environmental impression research, in addition to the change in land use authorization.”

The 950-mile Maya Prepare line is supposed to run in a tough loop across the Yucatán Peninsula, connecting seashore resorts and archaeological websites.

Initially projected to value round $8 billion, the prepare line now seems prone to rise to $15 billion, and probably as a lot as $20 billion. As a result of no actual feasibility research had been finished, it’s not clear whether or not the prepare will draw sufficient vacationers or recoup its prices.

Whereas some stretches of the prepare line run over present tracks or alongside present roads, different components are being lower by way of the jungle, together with a controversial stretch that cuts a 68-mile swath between the resorts of Cancún and Tulúm.

It’s the hurried approval and development on that Cancún -Tulúm stretch that’s on the middle of the criticism.

Activists say the heavy, high-speed rail venture will fragment the coastal jungle and can run usually above the roofs of fragile limestone caves often called cenotes, which — as a result of they’re flooded, twisty and sometimes extremely slim — can take a long time to discover.

Inside these water-filled caves are archaeological websites which have lain undisturbed for millennia, like Naia, the almost full skeleton of a younger lady who died round 13,000 years in the past.

José ‘Pepe’ Urbina, a diver who has explored the caverns for many years, welcomed the investigation of the prepare venture, despite the fact that the Mexican authorities has already began sinking concrete piles into the delicate limestone soil to construct the railway.

“That is excellent news, it comes a little bit late, however higher late than by no means,” Urbina mentioned. “Let’s examine what the Mexican authorities says or does. The environmental destruction is a actuality that their propaganda can’t cover any longer.”

The stretch of observe was initially purported to have been constructed on elevated tracks above the prevailing coastal freeway that connects the 2 resorts. However opposition from resort homeowners led López Obrador to relocate the prepare tracks inland, requiring staff to chop a swath by way of the jungle. The change was made with nearly no prior examine of its environmental impression.