Mexico: Residents said they weren’t consulted about Mayan Train hotel and that the project is dangerously close to ruins and important sources of water
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"Mexico’s Tren Maya hotel construction clears forest reserve without permits", 29 March 2023
...The sudden, unexpected construction of a hotel in the middle of a protected reserve in southern Mexico has surprised residents and left many conservationists scrambling to figure out what’s going to happen to one of the largest contiguous rainforests in Mesoamerica.
...The hotel is part of the Tren Maya, a controversial railway line that will move tourists and cargo throughout the Yucatán Peninsula and southern Mexico...
Heavy machinery was moved onto the site overnight, residents told Mongabay. And personnel from the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), the agency overseeing construction of the Tren Maya project, are posted around the perimeter, deterring people from coming close or taking photos.
“There are soldiers in the archaeological zone — the national guard,” said Enrique Rodríguez Córdova, a local tour guide. “None of us has dared demonstrate out of fear that they will do something to us”...
At every step of the way, construction has been plagued by dozens of injunctions claiming the government is moving forward without following environmental regulations. The injunctions say the railway construction puts sensitive forest and cave ecosystems at risk and forcibly relocates local and Indigenous communities...
Semarnat officials didn’t respond to a request for comment...
“Once a hotel like that is built,” Ceceña said, “there can be a number of problems related to water, waste, how food is supplied. All of that is going to enter the core of the reserve”...