If the proposal passes, school-aged kids could take up low risk work in agriculture.
A legal proposal to lower the minimum working age from 18 to 16 has won the support of politicians and business representatives.
The initiative targets rural areas where teenagers could take up low risk work in agriculture to reduce the attraction of organized crime.
The lower house of Congress already approved an initiative for the age change, which has passed to the upper house.
The president of the National Agricultural Council (CNA), Juan Cortina Gallardo, said that putting teenagers in low risk jobs would limit the temptations of criminal work. “We are in favor of legislating on the matter … allowing these young people to work in the sector, obviously delimiting their work to activities that do not represent a danger. Unfortunately, young people look to illicit activities for sources of income to get ahead,” he said.
Senator Ricardo Monreal said barring access to work opportunities was causing damage.
“We have to amend this law so that young people can be employed … before the age of 18, which is currently forbidden … It is an inadequate law, it is out of place and it pushes young people to, unfortunately, be employed in criminal activities because they do not have access to the labor market. It is a big problem,” he said.
Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier said that the change would bring economic benefits.
“We have [challenges] in front of us in terms of inflation, in terms of the need for the agricultural sector to continue strengthening and to continue creating better working conditions because the labor force is what gives fundamental importance to the countryside,” she said.
Clouthier added that lowering the age to 16 would see Mexico comply with international labor laws: “it’s not only because we believe in the legislation and respect it, but also to be able to assume international commitments and be able to take care of our population,” she said.
Jensen on the set of her previous film, In Times of Rain.
A 12th century Mixtec princess will be the protagonist of a new film to be made by an indigenous director originally from Oaxaca.
Itandehui Jansen, who also works as a film lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, is currently in the early stages of making a movie that will be called Ciudad de pedernales (Flint City).
“It will be completely in Mixtec, although in this initial stage I’m developing it in Spanish,” she told the newspaper Milenio. “It’s about a Mixtec princess in the 12th century who’s trying to solve a murder,” Jansen said.
She said the development of the script has been supported by imagineNATIVE, a Canadian organization that describes itself as the world’s largest presenter of indigenous screen content.
“It’s an ambitious and complicated project, and very different at the same time,” Jansen said. “The protagonist is a woman and her role is almost one of a detective.”
Itandehui Jansen, who is indigenous and originally from Oaxaca, works as a film lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
The filmmaker, a graduate of the Netherlands Film Academy, said the film will be more of a “traditional drama” than a visually striking movie that depicts “the great battles of the time.”
“… [It will be] more intimate,” she said. As there is scant information about some aspects of 12th century Mixtec life, such as clothing and housing, Jansen is making use of artistic license to develop the story and the main character, who is loosely based on a Mixtec warrior woman.
She said she is seeking to balance fictitious elements of the story with “the historical truth.”
“I’m giving myself some freedom to create a strong woman who’s starting to understand her relationship to power and her role as a ruler. There are Mixtec codices from that time that explain that they ruled in pairs; it’s not said there were no women rulers,” Jansen said.
One codex that informs her story is the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, also known as the Tondinye Codex, a document of Mixtec pictography held at the British Museum.
“I feel that [Mexican] historical films are about the [Spanish] colony, the conquest or the arrival of Columbus, but we have a history prior to that. These pre-colonial codices tell us older stories,” Jansen said.
Jansen says she is committed to having the Mixtec language in the film.
“My father is a historian, and we’ve wanted to work together for a long time. … This project is the perfect idea to do it. He’s providing me with the academic information and I’m developing a story,” she said.
Jansen said she is committed to having Mixtec dialogue in the film and noted that she will have the support of her husband, who speaks the language.
“I don’t speak it. My parents migrated to Holland when I was little, they maintained Spanish but when my mom wanted to teach me Mixtec I wasn’t interested,” she said.
“When I wanted to learn it was already very complicated [to do so]. Because of that frustration of having lost the language, I’ve done projects in Mixtec,” said the director, whose first feature, Tiempo de Lluvia/In Times of Rain, has dialogue in Spanish and Mixtec.
According to the writer, attention to Mexico's monarch butterflies and their habitats has significantly decreased of late. Omar vidal
One early morning in April, thousands of butterflies rose in front of me like a frenetic whirlwind — a dark mix of heads, thoraxes, legs and orange wings gracefully irrigated by rivers of black veins framed by tiny white speckles.
In unison, the fifth generation of monarch butterflies — the long-lived ones, the Methuselahs, the migrants without visas — began their voyage back north after having taken winter refuge among the oyamel fir, pine and oak forests of Mexico’s mighty Sierra Madre Oriental.
At 3,172 meters above sea level, I ecstatically contemplated how those colorful tiny bodies, each weighing less than a gram, raised into the sky with the same resolve with which — chased away by the winter cold and in search of a warmer home — they flew 4,000 kilometers from Canada and the United States to the forests in Llano de las Papas, Michoacán, where I stood that day in awe.
In that sanctuary, the butterflies rose into the air like colorful clouds. Their wings moved like those of fragile, little birds, and backlit by a blinding sun, they blurred in front of my eyes and disappeared into the blue.
Those were only a few of the hundreds of thousands of males who fell in love that day, grabbing the hindwings of females trying to fly while the two wrestled and did their part in an orgy of epic proportions — just as they have done every year since the beginning of time as part of the most sensual nuptial flight I know of.
Monarchs fly here to take winter refuge in the oyamel fir, pine and oak forests of Michoacán and México state. Eduardo Rendon/WWF
These tiny insects are determined to recolonize the reproductive areas of their grandparents and great-great-grandparents in the United States at any cost before they die because these butterflies know what is at stake: the survival of the most sublime migration in the entire animal kingdom.
A migration that, sadly, today is vanishing, bit by bit, monarch by monarch, in front of our eyes.
Once, twice or even three times between December and April, year after year for the past two decades, I have traveled from Mexico City to the monarch butterfly’s hibernation sanctuaries in Michoacán and México state. It became a family peregrination.
I spent many visits in monarch territory accompanied by ejidatarios (communal landowners) and indigenous communities — the legitimate owners of the land where the monarch colonies rest during the winter.
And, of course, I also visited with scientists, environmentalists, musicians, journalists, philosophers, businesspeople, philanthropists, lawyers, presidents, state governors, government ministers, diplomats and politicians of all stripes. Many times, I was with my family; sometimes their families also joined us.
After hiking the monarch mountains over the years with these many companions, I came to understand what Henry David Thoreau meant 168 years ago when he wrote in Walden: “We need the tonic of wildness … We can never have enough of nature.”
Do not our children and grandchildren deserve the magic of this sort of moment? Omar Vidal
I reached this understanding while breathing heavily at thousands of meters above sea level, while silently watching my fellow walkers contemplate — with humility and fascination — the orange mantle formed by fluttering butterflies or an old oyamel fir-covered from root to top by semi-dormant butterflies or that solitary butterfly flapping downward to gently settle on the nearest pine branch.
But what is important isn’t who I went to monarch territory with. What was truly significant was having proved to myself that no matter who we are or where we come from or how we earn a living or what we believe in or what we possess — or even if we are good or bad — we all share that atavistic, urgent need to connect, rejoice and heal in, and with, nature. Even if only for a moment.
Today, I’m convinced that nobody, absolutely nobody who has had the opportunity to discover the miracle of clouds of monarch butterflies in the wild will ever again be the same person. After watching las mariposas, one feels that, after all, life is worth living simply because all human beings are connected by an ancestral passion to loving and caressing nature.
All of my visits with the monarchs have been memorable. Each has been unique, and each has left a stamp on my soul. But perhaps the most endearing was 15 years ago.
So long as I live, I will never forget the emotions that washed over me as those streams of liquid butterflies, like rivers of gold, descended from the sky to quench their thirst with morning dewdrops gifted by the dawn. My daughter — just four years old at the time — and I, with eyes closed, hugged each other, curled up among oyamel firs and oaks as we waited for those orange-black wingbeats to vanish from the morning puddles.
Nor will I forget my haunting visit following the Day of the Dead, when the souls of our ancestors were returning, grafted into colorful butterflies. It was in Sierra Chincua, and I was with a Mexican biologist who has spent far more time than me studying monarchs and with a Protestant Dutch philosopher — El Holandés (the Dutchman) — who became an agnostic.
A quiet moment in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Eduardo Rendon/WWF
Searching for the brides of the sun, we climbed “El Candelabro,” an old, giant oyamel fir from which some heartless person had hacked off the trunk when the tree was young. Refusing to die, the tree responded by building 13 new trunks growing side-by-side like giant living Roman columns. I now believe that El Candelabro is the tree that inspired the walking trees of J.R.R. Tolkien’s TheLord of the Rings. I cannot prove that — not yet anyway.
Nor will I forget the visit in 2019, when one of the fiercest defenders of the monarchs proudly guided us as we all waded through rivers of butterflies flowing in and out of El Rosario in Michoacán, the largest and best-protected monarch sanctuary. He was the same local political activist who eventually became a stubborn environmentalist — and whose dead body was left in a muddy pond by his assassins a year later. He was just one of the 76 environmental defenders killed in Mexico between 2019 and 2021, making my country one of the world’s most dangerous for environmentalists.
In February 2020, before the pandemic shook the world, I came back to El Rosario, accompanied by my beloved Mexican butterfly — and romantic partner of the last 35 years. Crouching among the dwarf pines, we suddenly heard in the distance the voice of a noble and luminous Canadian butterfly humming a tune she composed for the occasion. She was accompanied by a gifted lepidopteran guitarist who, open-mouthed, gazed at her with love.
I told myself: here we are with dos mariposas (two butterflies) representing Mexico and Canada — the end and the beginning of the monarch’s long and winding journey.
I still ask myself if all this was true or if was just a dream induced by the images of those fluttering butterflies that we had seen just minutes before against the light, after they were awakened from their winter lethargy by the sun’s warm heart.
Many of the guardians of monarch butterfly habitats are some of Mexico’s poorest, who live on or around the land where the insects overwinter. Eduardo Rendon/WWF
This mighty migration is endangered mainly by our inability to tackle poverty and the social inequalities that haunt the life of the legitimate owners of the monarch’s hibernation sites.
I’m talking about the tens of thousands of Mexicans — many of them belonging to Mexico’s Mazahua and Otomí ethnic minorities — who, without access to proper education, health services, potable water, electricity and employment, live in agrarian communities within the 56,259 hectares that comprise the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.
Historically dependent on mining and logging, the region’s precarious economy forced many to migrate to the United States while others who chose not to leave their homeland became overwhelmed by the despair brought about by poverty and the violence driven by criminal organizations in the absence of the State’s rule or leadership.
Sure, during these times of cholera, paraphrasing Gabriel García Márquez, we no longer fancy investing money nor political capital in protecting the environment. Most unfortunately, the government and most companies, philanthropists and international organizations have all but abandoned the monarch butterfly and the small mountain communities that protect the monarchs’ forests. Will they raise their voices again and open their pockets in these times of need?
This essay is a call for help to all those whom nature has blessed and given a chance to visit the monarch butterfly colonies. It is a call to those who haven’t yet done so to visit them immediately and to economically and emotionally support the local communities within and around these colonies.
It is call to all of us to work together, hand in hand, with the landowners and guardians of the forests and the butterflies. A call to not steal from our children, grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren the joy of being connected with their local communities and the butterflies. A call to protect the daughters, granddaughters and great-great-granddaughters of Danaus plexippus, the winged brides of the sun and sisters of the moon.
The writer promises that you won’t regret visiting one of Mexico’s monarch butterfly reserve areas. Eduardo Rendon/WWF
Let us not miss the chance to make peace with ourselves and with all whom we love and with Mother Nature. It might be one of the last chances we have to save the monarch migration, their forests and the communities with whom they share the land.
Let us not fool ourselves, nor try to fool the next generations either. In this new year just beginning, we cannot miss our chance for reconciling with nature. I dare you to escape for a few days, alone or with your family, to visit any of the 12 community monarch butterfly sanctuaries. You will never regret it, I promise.
To my amigo, Rick Brusca, a.k.a. Dr. Odel Bernini, with thanks.
Omar Vidal, a scientist, was a university professor in Mexico, is a former senior officer at the UN Environment Program and the former director-general of the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico.
A campaign vehicle in Michoacán that was attacked a month before the June elections.
Mexico’s three-party opposition coalition has submitted a document to two international organizations claiming narco infiltration of the 2021 election process.
Filed with the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the document says organized crime fiddled ballot boxes, chose candidates and murdered and threatened others and that investigations into candidates with criminal links were botched.
“Armed groups kidnapped and immobilized entire campaign teams, seized polling stations and forced citizens to cast their votes publicly,” the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) claimed. The three parties competed under the Va por México (Go for Mexico) banner in the June 6 election.
The coalition pointed to a concentration of violence in Sinaloa, México state, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán, Guerrero and Guanajuato and called into question the votes in seven states. The accusations are based on the testimonies of hundreds of party members and workers.
The document details the kidnapping of a candidate in Culiacán, Sinaloa, who was taken to a probable gang leader. In the same city, PRI party workers were kidnapped and officials at polling stations were forced to fill ballot boxes with Morena votes at gunpoint, it alleges.
It also mentions human heads found in a ballot box in Tijuana, Baja California.
Twenty-seven candidates died in the electoral process and threats continued after June 6: “The threats were extended to the post-election [period] through an imposed law of silence on everything that had happened.”
It complains that President López Obrador ignored the spate of violence. “Despite what is stated here, on Monday, June 7, President López Obrador said that ‘the people behaved very well, those who belong to organized crime in general as well, there were very few acts of violence by these groups.'”
The electoral season for the June 6 vote was the most violent on record. Risk analysis firm Etellekt, which tracks election campaign violence, said that there were 1,066 acts of aggression against politicians and candidates between September 7, 2020 and June 6, a 38% increase compared to the 2017–2018 electoral season, when a total of 774 such incidents were recorded. One-hundred and two of the incidents were homicides and 36 of those victims were aspiring candidates.
A healthcare worker conducts a rapid test. The health regulator has warned that unapproved test kits are being sold via social media.
A new single-day record of 60,552 confirmed coronavirus cases was reported Wednesday, lifting the estimated active case count to more than 325,000 after almost 50,000 new cases were reported on Tuesday.
Mexico City has more than 66,000 active cases, neighboring México state has almost 22,000 and Nuevo León has over 17,000.
Each of Coahuila, Guanajuato, Jalisco, San Luis Potosí and Tabasco has more than 10,000 infections.
On a per capita basis, Baja California Sur has the highest number of active cases with 900 per 100,000 people.
The Health Ministry also reported that the occupancy rate for general care hospital beds in COVID wards had increased three points in 24 hours to 34%. The occupancy rate for beds with ventilators rose two points to 19%.
The federal government is currently administering booster shots to people aged 60 and over, health workers and teachers, as well as first and second shots to adolescents aged 15 to 17 and adults who weren’t inoculated when vaccines were made available to them last year.
More than 82.9 million people have been vaccinated in Mexico, and 92% of that number are fully vaccinated.
In other COVID-19 news:
• Rapid COVID tests that are not approved by health regulator Cofepris are being sold in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, the newspaper Milenio reported. The tests are advertised and sold on social media, the newspaper said.
The chief of Cofepris in Chihuahua said the online sale of rapid antigen tests is out of control. Citing the risk they will return false negative results, Alejandro Torres called on citizens not to buy them.
Several brands of antigen tests are being sold in Juárez for 280-500 pesos (US $14-$24) each. One vendor told Milenio that he personally imports the tests from China.
• The Mexico City Health Ministry has detected that some non-government testing stations in the capital are using Chinese-made rapid tests that are not approved by Cofepris. Non-authorized rapid tests can also be bought online in Mexico City and in stores in the capital’s historic center.
Mexico City authorities last week set up 11 “macro-kiosks” where residents can access rapid antigen testing free of charge. However, tests are limited and some people have complained of missing out.
UPDATED: This story has been updated with new information reflecting the new case numbers reported Wednesday.
The man used his SUV to crash through a fence and push a pickup truck out of his way.
An elderly man was arrested in Tamaulipas on Tuesday for trying to skip the line for a COVID-19 shot, colliding with at least one vehicle and a fence in the process.
The man arrived in a white sport utility vehicle at the drive-through vaccination center in Tampico at a campus of the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas. He drove into a steel gate at an entrance to the campus before accelerating and crashing into a pickup truck belonging to the university.
In a video, he is seen accelerating into the university vehicle — which spins around 180 degrees — forcing his way past it before driving on. “He might run someone over up there,” someone can be heard saying.
The unidentified suspect was stopped some 100 meters farther down the road by National Guardsmen and university security guards.
After being instructed to leave his vehicle by officers, he refused to do so, arguing that he had symptoms of COVID-19 and could be contagious, the newspaper El Universal reported.
Abuelito no quería hacer fila y tumba puerta de módulo de vacunación en Tampico
A news report with footage of the incident.
The man can be heard screaming in another video as he is detained by force by three people. Meanwhile, his pickup was removed by a tow truck.
The diplomatic appointment of an academic accused of sexual harassment has been slammed by feminist collectives.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday announced the appointment of 16 diplomats to Mexican embassies and consulates.
Pedro Agustín Salmerón, a National Autonomous University-trained historian, was named as the new ambassador to Panama.
The 50-year-old, a Mexican history expert and prominent ally of President López Obrador with no previous diplomatic experience, has been formally accused of sexual harassment by at least one person, while several other women have denounced him anonymously.
Salmerón resigned from his position at the Autonomous Technical Institute of Mexico (ITAM), a private university, in 2019 after an internal harassment complaint was filed against him at a time when the feminist #MeToo movement was gaining strength in Mexico.
ITAM acknowledged that there was evidence that he had harassed at least one female student in his Mexican history class.
Salmerón has denied the accusations, and took to Twitter to declare his innocence once again on Tuesday. His account later disappeared from the social media site.
The announcement of his appointment as ambassador to Panama, which must be ratified by the Senate, triggered an avalanche of criticism on social media. The ITAM feminist group Cuarta Ola was among the organizations that slammed the move.
Under the hashtag #UnAcosadorNoDebeSerEmbajador (A harasser mustn’t be an ambassador), the group published a statement on Twitter that called on the government to reconsider the appointment.
In light of Salmerón’s appointment “we want to express our indignation and concern over the multiple harassment complaints against him that are being ignored,” Cuarta Ola said.
“During his years as a professor at ITAM, Pedro Salmerón took advantage of his position of authority to sexually harass his female students,” the group said, noting that a university investigation was initiated as a result of his conduct.
President López Obrador has drawn criticism for defending Salmerón, left.
Cuarto Ola acknowledged that Salmerón denies the harassment accusations but noted that ITAM directors have accepted there is evidence to support them.
“This situation is repetitive and systematic,” it said, adding that complaints have been made against him via the MeTooAcádemicosMX Twitter account and at the National Autonomous University, where Salmerón studied for years. Eight female members of the ruling Morena party have also accused the academic of harassment, Cuarto Ola said.
“… His appointment as ambassador is of great concern given that he has shown he is a person who abuses his position of power to harass women. With his appointment hundreds of women are placed at risk of suffering gender violence. This decision shows a lack of respect for victims and strengthens the system of impunity in which we live. … We hope that his appointment is reconsidered and justice for victims is served,” the feminist group said.
Former students of Salmerón who spoke with the newspaper El País called on the Senate to block his appointment.
Karla Torres, a classmate of the student who filed a complaint at ITAM, described Salmerón as a “constant harasser in all the universities” at which he has worked. His appointment as an ambassador is “very painful” for his victims, she said.
Another student who preferred to remain anonymous told El País that Salmerón would hit on young female students during drinking sessions at cantinas that took place at the conclusion of class trips to the historic center of Mexico City, where Mexico’s pre-Hispanic and colonial pasts, and independent present, intersect.
López Obrador on Tuesday defended Salmerón’s appointment, saying that he wasn’t aware of any “formal and legal complaint” against him.
Martha Tagle, a former federal deputy for the Citizens Movement party and member of the Rebeldes con Causa feminist collective, said López Obrador’s support for Salmerón was regrettable.
“It’s not the first time that he has covered up for a person accused of sexual violence. He doesn’t believe what women say and despite the accusations [against Salmerón] he nominated him [as ambassador to Panama],” she said.
“The underlying problem we have is that the president doesn’t acknowledge the issue of violence against women; that’s why he asks for evidence, criminal processes [against alleged perpetrators] without understanding that neither laws nor the criminal system guarantee us justice,” Tagle said.
Protesting student teachers from a rural training college in Michoacán clashed with state police officers on Monday.
The students tried to stop trucks and buses on the Siglo 21 highway near Tiripetío, 25 kilometers southwest of Morelia, in order to block traffic.
When state police arrived, the protesters fired rockets and threw stones at them.
In response, the officers fired tear gas at the students, who fled to their nearby school.
In a video published by the news website La Silla Rota, some 100 protesters are seen on both sides of the highway with a large cloud of gas spreading across it.
The Public Security Ministry said that there were no injuries.
The students were demanding that jobs be automatically awarded to teachers who have completed their training, without fulfilling the legally required accreditation process. It is a perennial demand by students and the dissident CNTE teachers union.
Blockades are a common tactic for dissatisfied teachers and teachers-to-be in Michoacán and other states: members of the CNTE blocked tracks for 91 days last year, costing businesses an estimated 50 million pesos per day (US $2.5 million at the exchange rate at the time).
Manufacturing represents more opportunities for Mexico but pragmatic solutions that leave behind ideological debate are needed.
It may seem hard to believe today but Brazil and Mexico were once the envy of the world. Their economies grew more than 6% a year from 1951-80, almost as fast as postwar growth paragons South Korea and Japan.
Since the debt crisis of the 1980s, Latin America has fallen badly behind. In recent years it has sunk to the bottom of the emerging market class, underperforming the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa.
Latin America’s inability to grow generates much hand-wringing and many theories. Low productivity, poor infrastructure, corruption and political instability are recurrent themes. Criticisms are leveled at the leftwing governments of the early 2000s for not investing enough wealth from the commodity boom in building competitive infrastructure or delivering high-quality education and health. The right is faulted for doing too little to tackle entrenched inequality, promote effective competition or make taxation fairer.
Coronavirus cruelly exposed Latin America’s limitations; the combined health and economic impact from the pandemic was the worst in the world. Now change is in the air. In a series of important elections, voters in the region have turned on incumbents and picked radical newcomers. Peru and Chile have swung far to the left, Ecuador, Uruguay and Argentina have tilted back to the right. Brazil and Colombia vote this year.
Fortunately, Latin America’s plentiful natural resources mean that opportunities abound. The region is rich in two key metals for electrification: copper and lithium. Home to some of the world’s sunniest and windiest areas, it could generate gigawatts of ultra-low-cost electricity to produce and export green hydrogen.
The region is in the middle of a tech boom so big that it attracted more private capital in the first half of last year than southeast Asia. The world’s biggest standalone digital bank, Nubank, is Brazilian. Tiny Uruguay is a leading software exporter.
A push by the U.S. to bring production closer to its shores could give manufacturing in Mexico and Central America a fillip. Brazil has fostered the development of globally competitive high-tech agriculture.
To exploit these opportunities to the full, Latin America needs to adopt pragmatic solutions that leave behind ideological debate. This should begin with the axiom that wealth must first be created to be shared. A flourishing private sector, a fully functioning state, quality public services, the rule of law and foreign investment are all essential ingredients.
Taxation in some nations is too low but raising it will only help if the proceeds deliver healthier, better educated and more productive citizens, and competitive economies. Too often in Latin America, higher government spending has meant padded payrolls and increased corruption, rather than better outcomes.
Citizens across Latin America are growing restive. Tolerance for governments of any stripe that fail to deliver is minimal. Their faith in elected presidents is being sorely tested.
During the last growth spurt, Mexico was a one-party state and Brazil mostly a military dictatorship. If the region is to avoid sliding back into populist authoritarianism, its new leaders urgently need to show that democracy can deliver strong, sustainable growth and shared prosperity. That means abandoning dogma and seeking consensus around long-term policies to build effective states, strengthen the rule of law and create globally competitive economies. Time is running out.
The federal government has declared its intention to expropriate 198 privately owned properties for the construction of the Maya Train railroad in Quintana Roo, raising concern among local authorities and the business community.
In a notice published in its official gazette on Monday, the government said it intended to expropriate properties of “public utility” in the municipalities of Benito Juárez (Cancún), Puerto Morelos and Solidaridad (Playa del Carmen).
Publication of the notice by the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning came nine days after the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) asked it to take the necessary steps to acquire properties needed for the construction of the railroad in northern Quintana Roo.
The total area of the land the government plans to expropriate is approximately 241 hectares, which it wants for the northern portion of section 5 of the railroad, running between Cancún and Playa del Carmen. Sedena will build the section.
Publication of the expropriation notice came 12 days after President López Obrador announced that the southern portion of the same section, which will run between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, would be rerouted so that it doesn’t run between the northbound and southbound lanes of Federal Highway 307.
Part of the northern portion that was also slated to run between the highway will be rerouted as well, precipitating the government’s need for private land in the three northern Quintana Roo municipalities.
Rogelio Jiménez Pons, whom the president recently removed from his position at the helm of the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), which is managing the Maya Train project, said just before his departure that the government would spend about 1 billion pesos (US $49 million) to buy land between Playa del Carmen and Tulum for the new route, to be built by a consortium made up of Grupo México and Spanish firm Acciona.
A lot of the properties required for the new right of way are owned by hoteliers who have expressed their support for the rerouting of the line and are willing to sell, Jiménez said.
But for construction of the northern portion of section 5, the government appears intent on getting the land it needs for free.
The Riviera Maya Hotel Association (AHRM) promptly set out its opposition to the plan, issuing a statement that noted its members would be affected. The association said it had requested a meeting with new Fonatur director Javier May Rodríguez.
“We are confident that agreements can be reached through dialogue and negotiation. Among those affected [by the planned expropriation] are important hotel chains,” said AHRM president Tony Chávez.
The mayor of Solidaridad, where 142 of the properties are located, also responded to the expropriation notice. Lili Campos Miranda said her government was reviewing the expropriation plan to determine whether municipal assets would be affected. The mayor warned that Solidaridad would take legal action if its assets were to be adversely impacted.
The president of the Riviera Maya branch of the Business Coordinating Council said he would also review the government’s plan. However, Lenin Amaro Betancourt said he hadn’t received any complaints from affected landowners and raised the possibility that the government had in fact reached agreements with them.
But if that were the case, the publication of an expropriation notice would appear to be unnecessary.
Amaro asserted that the information published in the official gazette was not precise and called on the government to clarify its intentions.
The US $8 billion, 1,500-kilometer-long Maya Train railroad is one of the federal government’s signature infrastructure projects. The railroad, which will run through Quintana Roo, Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco and Yucatán, is slated for completion in late 2023.
López Obrador claims that the operation of the railroad – on which tourist, freight and local transport trains will run – will bring economic benefits to Mexico’s southeast, but the project has faced opposition, including that of Mayan residents who have questioned whether it will in fact improve their lot in life.
