What happened on the last Sunday of September 2024 summarized the disdain that the Mexican government has shown towards environmental issues in the last six years. That day, in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, a few hours before the end of his presidential term, Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated the entire circuit that the so-called Mayan Train runs along, gave awards to the military who built the project and, once again, disqualified the work of people and organizations that denounced the environmental damage caused by this megaproject.
López Obrador considered the entry into operation of the so-called Mayan Train “a feat.” He did not mention that to build this emblematic megaproject of his administration, more than 6,659 hectares were deforested, the Mayan Jungle was further fragmented, a hotel was built within a Biosphere Reserve, communities were divided, environmental laws were ignored and cenotes were drilled, those caverns that protect the groundwater and that give a special personality to the Yucatan Peninsula.
For Mexico, the year 2024 represented the end of the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president who undertook what he himself called the Fourth Transformation of the country. Throughout this transformation he was criticized by experts, scientists, environmental organizations and indigenous people for not respecting a territory considered among the most biodiverse.
In 2024, the same trend of the previous years was maintained: environmental issues were not a priority, on the contrary, they were relegated. Specialists in forests, oceans, protected natural areas, environmental policy and those from non-governmental organizations who accompany environmental and territorial defenders agree on this.
Mexico ends the year 2024 with weakened environmental institutions and without operational capacity, with greater environmental degradation, with a strong criminalization of environmental and territorial defenders, with environmental crimes that remain unpunished, with oceans and forest areas without attention. As a consequence, the control that organized crime groups have in natural spaces became even more entrenched.
The serious thing: the weakening of institutions
Since his first year in office, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has shown that the environment was not a priority or urgent issue. His priorities were in other areas, for example, in promoting Sembrando Vida, a social program in which it is assured that the environmental component lies in reforestation. However, according to the experts interviewed, it is not aimed at restoring forest ecosystems. And proof of this is that the program does not have environmental indicators that allow us to know its impact on biodiversity, soils and the recovery of forest cover.
López Obrador also placed at the center of his government the construction of megaprojects such as the Dos Bocas Refinery in a mangrove area in Tabasco, the so-called Mayan Train in the Yucatan Peninsula or the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), which includes the installation of at least ten industrial parks in Oaxaca and Veracruz.
“The development model [in Mexico] has favored the realization of large projects arguing that they are triggers of economic growth, but they overlook their socio-environmental impacts and costs,” say the 35 specialists who participated in the preparation of the document titled Socio-Environmental Agenda 2024.
In this publication, academics, scientists, members of civil organizations and former officials review the actions carried out by the López Obrador administration on issues such as water, agriculture, forests, energy, climate change, among others. Although they acknowledge that there has been progress in the protection of native corn, in trying to gradually eliminate the use of glyphosate and in not granting new mining concessions, in general the balance they present is negative.
“In the national development policy, a model that has led to environmental degradation and the loss of biodiversity persists,” highlights the group of 35 specialists.
In addition, from the government itself, procedures such as the popular consultation or studies such as the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) were minimized and disdained, says Gustavo Alanís, executive director of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda).
Complaints about popular consultations carried out in an inadequate manner and about EISs that were presented out of time, with erroneous data, without considering all the accumulated impacts or whose information was reserved were constant in the iconic megaprojects of the six-year term, such as the Dos Bocas Refinery, the CIIT, the so-called Mayan Train and what is already known as “The ghost train in Sonora.”
The experts interviewed also highlight a theme that was recurrent throughout López Obrador’s six-year term: the weakening of the institutions responsible for environmental management, caused by the budget cuts suffered by the sector, especially in 2020 and 2021. Although there was an increase for the following years, and in 2024 the budget for Environment and Natural Resources reached just over 70 billion pesos (more than three million dollars), most of that money was allocated to the construction of hydraulic works.
“More than 80% of the environmental budget was allocated to Conagua (National Water Commission), despite its notorious corruption and submission to the interests of the large water-hoarding concessionaires,” highlight the authors of the Socio-Environmental Agenda 2024.
The lack of budget for all other areas of the environmental sector was felt and led to cascading problems. Among the most obvious is the almost non-existent action of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa), an agency that lost its capacity to combat environmental crimes, such as illegal logging and fishing.
“The lack of budget and personnel meant that the environmental authority could not fulfil its duties; it was completely absent and negligent,” says Gustavo Alanís, executive director of Cemda.
This is also highlighted by those who wrote the Socio-Environmental Agenda 2024: the reduction in the budget led the institutions “to the limit of ineffectiveness and almost no presence in the field.” At the same time, they point out that “a social phenomenon of major gravity has occurred: the advance of control of territories by organised crime.”
The worrying thing: violence against environmental defenders
Before the López Obrador government, Mexico already appeared on the list of the five countries with the highest number of attacks against those who defend forests, rivers, mountains and everything that gives life to an ecosystem. Between 2012 and 2023 alone, 203 environmental and land defenders were murdered, according to data from Global Witness, a non-governmental organization that documents this violence.
During López Obrador’s six-year term, 102 environmental and land defenders suffered lethal attacks, according to documentation produced by Cemda. In 2023, 20 of these murders were recorded. And although everything seems to indicate that the number of homicides decreased slightly in 2024, records from human rights organizations also show that other forms of violence, especially criminalization, have been on the rise.
At least 61 people are linked to investigation files accused of various crimes, especially damage to communication routes. Most of these accusations arose after these people expressed their opposition to the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), as documented by a civil mission made up of members of organizations that visited some communities affected by this megaproject.
Communities that have denounced the contamination and dispossession of territory caused by pig farms in the Yucatan Peninsula have also suffered criminalization. As has the El Coyul community, which has opposed the plans of individuals seeking to carry out a real estate project in a mangrove area and the arrival of turtles in Oaxaca.
Throughout López Obrador’s six-year term, another form of violence that gained strength was the stigmatization against people, communities and organizations defending the environment and territory. During the morning press conference that the president offered every day and that was known as “the morning press conference,” those who denounced the environmental damage caused by megaprojects were disqualified.
Impunity also took hold in many of the cases of people defending the environment and the territory who were murdered or disappeared, as has happened in the case of the disappearance of lawyer Ricardo Lagunes and professor Antonio Díaz, which occurred in January 2023. The year 2024 ended without them or 37 other defenders being located.
Gabriela Carreón, co-coordinator of TerraVida, an organization that accompanies people and communities defending the environment and the territory, highlights that the fact that the construction of megaprojects — such as the CIIT or the so-called Mayan Train — has been carried out by the military, unleashed various dynamics in the territories. One of them was to inhibit social protest.
More than 6,000 hectares — an estimated 10 million trees — have been deforested to make way for the tracks of the so-called “Maya” Train. Photo: Fernando Martínez Belmar
“Institutions in Mexico have not been up to the task of guaranteeing the safety of environmental and territorial defenders, nor of combating the impunity that persists in these forms of violence,” says Carreón. And that is why one of the debts left by 2024 is the implementation of the Escazú Agreement.
Carreón believes that, despite the fact that Mexico was one of the countries that promoted the entry into force of the Escazú Agreement, in the national territory “there has been a lack of will on the part of institutional entities to implement it.” And there are two areas where it is clear that the agreement is still only on paper: there are still no judges specialized in environmental matters and there are major problems in access to environmental information, since much environmental data is not updated or access to it is denied.
In Mexico, the defense of the environment and the territory was not only opposed to megaprojects promoted by the State or by companies. In 2024, the presence of organized crime groups that have made trafficking in species, fishing or logging part of their business was even more evident.
The critical issue: the control of organized crime in forest territories
Chihuahua, Durango, the State of Mexico and Michoacán are some of the states in the country where residents have reported cases where organized crime has taken over community forest management. This has been documented by Iván Zúñiga, manager of Forest Landscapes at the World Resources Institute (WRI) and who has been working on the issue of sustainable forest management since 1995. In these states of the country “[people linked to organized crime] have taken over the boards of directors of forest management organizations, are in charge of sawmills or the supply chain of forest products.”
Forests of Durango, Mexico
Sustainable forest management with a landscape approach allows preserving the character of the forests of northwest Durango as complex ecosystems of water resources, flora and fauna. Photo: Courtesy of UCDFI Topia, S.C.
Zúñiga is one of the authors who participated in the chapter dedicated to forest regions, included in the Socio-Environmental Agenda 2024. In that section it is noted that “the empowerment of criminal groups has increased illegal logging, even in regions where communities had made progress in the sustainable management of territories.”
It is also mentioned that illegal logging “has become a growing and widespread problem.” According to that document, it is estimated that between seven and nine million cubic meters of round wood are illegally cut down each year. This represents between 95 and 120% of all legal timber harvesting recorded in the country.
A little more than 70% of the national territory is home to some forest ecosystem. Even so, the forestry sector was neglected: “It was not seen as an essential productive sector for the development of several regions of the country. It did not receive adequate support, especially during the second part of the six-year term,” says Zúñiga.
The State’s lack of capacity to address the forestry agenda, caused by the reduction in the budget of the National Forestry Commission (Conafor), was one of the several ingredients that paved the way for what is now happening in many of the country’s forested territories, for example, the increase in the presence of pests and diseases, as well as fires that are increasingly affecting a larger area, as shown by Conafor’s own data.
The country was also unable to reduce the loss of forest area: if in 2022, at least, 179,000 hectares were left without tree cover, by 2023 that figure rose to 226,000 hectares, according to the most up-to-date analyses by the Global Forest Watch platform.
One of the regions of the country that has lost the most forest cover is the Yucatan Peninsula. Between 2019 and 2023, at least 285,580 hectares ceased to be forest land, according to data from a satellite image analysis platform developed by the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS), under the technical direction of Dr. Edward Ellis. This tool allows us to know that the causes of deforestation in that region were the construction of the so-called Mayan Train and the Tulum international airport, the expansion of agribusiness and pig and poultry farms, the establishment of pastures and real estate developments.
In Hopelchén, Campeche, for example, the expansion of agribusiness has caused much of the loss of forest cover, as documented by Mongabay Latam in August 2022. In that municipality, the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) held roundtable discussions with the Mennonites who deforested the land without having the authorizations to change land use to do so. These roundtable discussions did not stop deforestation. The expansion of agribusiness continues in the area. “There is a big problem generated by the lack of government capacity to ensure compliance with laws. There is enormous impunity in illegal land use changes,” Zúñiga points out.
The forgotten: the fishing sector
Mexico is among the 20 countries in the world with the highest fishing production and it is the activity that employs more than two million people. In addition, more than 15 million people live in the 263 coastal municipalities of the country.
Despite the importance of marine life for Mexican territory, during López Obrador’s six-year term, the National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries (Conapesca) remained blurred, especially because the person who was in charge of the agency – Octavio Almada Palafox – from 2021 until September 2024, “abandoned the sector and did nothing to meet the goals of the sector plan,” says Esteban García-Peña Valenzuela, coordinator of public policies for Oceana’s Mexico office.
For example, the goals of creating networks of fishing refuges, reducing poverty in the fishing sector, promoting adaptation to climate change, strengthening surveillance and combating illegal fishing were not met.
There are data that show the abandonment: if between 2009 and 2014 there were 183 federal fishing officers for the entire country, this number decreased to 161 between 2018 and 2022. In addition, if for the period 2009 to 2014 1,228 people accused of illegal fishing were arrested, between 2018 and 2023 there were only 59. “There are fewer inspectors, less budget and there is no real fight against illegal fishing, which is the scourge of fishing,” García-Peña highlights.
In Mexico, according to the Statistical Yearbook of Fishing published in 2023, between 1.8 and 2.1 million tons of fish are caught each year, without taking into account illegal fishing, which would represent 40% more of that amount, according to some estimates.
García-Peña mentions that illegal fishing is already affecting at least 300 species of commercial importance, including the Gulf of Mexico red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), the sea bass (Centropomus undecimalis), the mullet (Mugil cephalus), the red grouper (Epinephelus morio), the pink shrimp (Farfantepenaeus duorarum), among others.
The abandonment of the fishing sector is also reflected in the fact that there has been no progress in updating the status of fishing species and that only 30% of the fisheries in the country have management plans. García-Peña comments that this has led to 28 fisheries, out of the 83 recognized, being in a state of deterioration or that their use exceeds the “maximum sustainable use.”
In 2024, there was no work to provide alternatives to fishermen who are increasingly facing greater adversities due to the presence of more frequent and intense hurricanes or the effects of climate change on various fisheries. “There is no adaptation of public policies to these scenarios,” says the Oceana expert.
In this regard, Gustavo Alanís, executive director of Cemda, recalls that the Mexican government set aside the entire agenda for mitigation and adaptation to climate change, by maintaining a regressive energy policy: “It was a bet on fossil fuels: a new refinery was built and coal-fired power plants, oil and gas were promoted.”
Furthermore, despite López Obrador’s commitment to end fracking, this practice continued and more than 62 billion pesos were spent between 2018 and 2024 on projects that involve the use of this hydrocarbon extraction technique that causes a decrease in water availability, according to data included in the Socio-Environmental Agenda 2024.
The good (but not so good): more natural areas on paper
At the beginning of his government, López Obrador announced that one of his environmental goals was to decree 50 new Protected Natural Areas (ANPs). In 2024, the pace to fulfill the promise was accelerated. In fact, on the last day of the six-year term, six new areas were decreed.
Mexico now has 232 ANPs, but 106 of them do not have a management program, a vital document to know what the threats to the places are and the best strategies to conserve the sites. “We cannot advance in the protection of biodiversity and biocultural spaces if we do not have this instrument,” highlights Gina Ileana Chacón, director of public policy of Wildlands Network Mexico, a civil society organization that is part of the Northwest Coalition of Civil Society for Environmental Sustainability (NOSSA).
In addition, many of the ANPs do not have a budget or staff. Chacón gives as an example the case of the Jaguar Flora and Fauna Protection Area (APFF Jaguar), created in mid-2022 in the municipality of Tulum, in Quintana Roo, and whose management program was published in February 2024, but which has no assigned resources and only has two people working in the area that is just over 2,249 hectares.
“We do not want natural areas on paper. Even if they have a management plan, if they do not have a budget, it is not possible to do much to guarantee their protection,” Chacón highlights.
The Jaguar APFF was created right in one of the areas where the so-called Mayan Train passes and was presented as if it were compensation for the construction of the megaproject. In this sense, Chacón highlights that “the creation of an ANP cannot compensate for the fragmentation of an ecosystem such as the Mayan Jungle. This fragmentation puts at risk the survival of the ecosystem as a whole and of biodiversity, especially of emblematic species such as the jaguar.”
Declaring more areas without providing them with a management program or budget was not the only inconsistency observed during the last year of the López Obrador administration. Before closing the six-year term, Semarnat officials authorized Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) for the construction of tourist developments in areas surrounding the Cabo Pulmo National Park.
The revocation of one of those authorizations was one of the first actions taken by Alicia Bárcena, as the new head of Semarnat, after Claudia Sheinbaum became president of Mexico.
The hopeful thing: appointments in the environmental sector
On October 1, 2024, the physicist and doctor in energy engineering Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo took office as the first female president that Mexico has. It is also the first time that the country’s presidency is held by someone who was never part of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that governed the country for more than 70 years and where López Obrador began his political career.
Sheinbaum was also part of the group of more than 600 academics and researchers of the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC).
The president appointed the biologist and diplomat Alicia Bárcena as head of Semarnat. She was Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the last year of López Obrador’s government and was executive director of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), where she promoted the Escazú Agreement.
In the sub-secretariats and in the different environmental departments, people who are recognized for their technical capacity and experience in environmental issues were also appointed. The appointment of the fisheries engineer Alejandro Flores Nava, head of Conapesca, and the agricultural engineer and researcher Julio Berdegué Sacristán as head of the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sagarpa) have also been applauded.
“There is enthusiasm, because there is the possibility that we can have, once again, a cordial and respectful relationship with the environmental authority,” says Gustavo Alanís, about the appointments in the environmental sector.
Alanís’ opinion is not isolated. Among the various non-governmental organizations and even in international spaces, the arrival of people with experience and scientific knowledge in the environmental sector has been celebrated.
Alanís, for example, recalls that during the last United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP16) held in Cali, Colombia, “it was celebrated that Mexico was back with prepared environmental authorities, with experience in the issues. This has generated a very positive expectation.”
This expectation will now face reality, especially if Claudia Sheinbaum’s government takes the same position as her predecessor and, during the next few years, punishes the environmental sector with a minimal budget. Something that is already looming, at least for 2025.
Source: es.mongabay
