The International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature ordered the Mexican government to immediately stop the construction of the Mayan Train, as well as to carry out the necessary tasks to repair the damages to nature caused by this megaproject, as they considered that the Mayan peoples were ignored in the implementation of the project.
The organization also stated that the violation of the rights of nature, human, individual, collective and biocultural rights of the Mayan people must be recognized, as they are crimes of ecocide and ethnocide due to the violation of these fundamental rights.
“We make an urgent call to the State and the intervention of international, regional and national human rights organizations for the cessation of the dispossession of ejido lands, to put an end to the persecution, threats, harassment and intimidation of nature defenders, of which the Tribunal was a direct witness.”
He added that an independent audit must be carried out immediately to determine not only environmental damages, but also social and cultural damages, as well as to legislate for the recognition of the rights of nature.
In addition to revising the law that establishes the social ownership of land, to be replaced by a law that contemplates the socio-ecological function of the territory in its indissoluble relationship with the sustainable cultural practices of the peoples and communities that ancestrally inhabit them.
The hearing in which this ruling was reached took place from March 9 to 12, 2023 in Yucatan and Quintana Roo, where the communities were visited:
- Pisté
- Mr.
- Buctzotz
- Xmaben
- Tihosuco
- Ramona
- Yax-Ley
- Felipe Carrillo Puerto
- Chunhuhub
- Tihosuco
- Candelaria
- Dziuché
- José María Morelos
Testimonies from several communities were also heard:
- Pisté
- Tizimin
- Sanahcat
- Ticul
- Izamal
- Valladolid
- Cantamayec
- Tihosuco
- Bacalar
- New Jerusalem
- Don Samuel Escarcega
- Ich Ek
- Hopelchen
- Isla Arena
- Xpujil
- Calakmul
- Xcalot Akal
- Xkix
- Chinch
- Suc-Tuc
- Komchen
- Salto del Agua
- Palenque
- Múuch Xiinbal
- Xpujil
- Calakmul
- José María Morelos
- U Yo’ol Lu’um
- U Kúuchil K
- Ch’i’ibalo’on
“According to the minutes it is verified that no representative of the State attended this hearing, having been legitimately invited through a letter delivered to the Embassy of Mexico in Ecuador, seat of the Tribunal, as well as through email and physically on March 7, inviting both the government of Mexico, the National Human Rights Commission, Fonatur, Semarnat, INPI, Sedatu and CONANP.”
