Yucatán (Mexico) Court Case: rights of the Ring of Cenotes

Summary

In March 2023, the Indigenous Maya organization Kanan Ts’ono’ot (Guardians of the Cenotes) from Homún, Yucatán, filed a federal injunction seeking legal recognition of the Ring of Cenotes Geohydrological Reserve as a subject of rights and formal designation of community members as its guardians.

The Ring of Cenotes is a critical ecological area and was designated a RAMSAR Wetland of International Importance in 2009. In 2013, it became a State Protected Natural Area covering 219,207 hectares across multiple municipalities in central Yucatán.

Background:
The case arose when new access roads were built near Homún without community notification. These roads were intended to facilitate construction of a large-scale pig farm designed to raise 49,000 animals. Residents objected due to risks of groundwater contamination and broader ecological harms to the cenotes.

In response, the company accelerated construction. In 2017, the Homún community created the Kanan Ts’ono’ot collective to coordinate their defense efforts. They organized a community consultation, in which 753 residents voted against the farm and 40 voted in favor. Local, state, and federal authorities were then petitioned to halt the project.

The collective gathered evidence of organochlorine pesticides in the region’s water (substances banned in many countries). In February 2022, they submitted these findings to authorities and requested immediate cessation of activities harming the cenotes, along with restoration measures. Authorities did not respond. In March 2023, the community filed an amparo (legal instrument used to challenge unlawful government actions – analogous to a writ of protection, but more comprehensive than a writ of habeas corpus) against government entities responsible for the inaction.

Jurisprudential Framing:
The injunction builds on more than a year of formal requests by Homún residents for federal and state authorities to halt large-scale infrastructure, agricultural, real estate, and extractive projects that have caused damage to the Yucatán Peninsula aquifer. These projects, including the highly controversial Tren Maya, have proceeded without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, despite Mexico’s commitment as a signatory of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples) Convention 169, as well as Mexico’s constitutional protections for Indigenous Peoples.

The petition argues that these megaprojects cause “negative socioecological impacts on the bicultural heritage represented by the Ring of Cenotes” and threaten both the aquifer system and the Maya communities who hold ancestral guardianship of the area. Supporting reports submitted with the injunction detail the Maya worldview, in which cenotes are sacred beings and portals to the underworld, home to deities such as Chaac and supernatural guardians like aluxo’ob. Community members are taught to enter cenotes only with permission and care.

Legal Proceedings:
In March 2023, the Fourth District Court of the Fourteenth Circuit admitted the case. On May 29, the federal judge ruled that the Yucatán authorities had committed omissions and violated rights by authorizing the Environmental Impact Statement for the Homún megafarm. The court issued a definitive suspension halting megaprojects that threaten the Ring of Cenotes.

This does not mean that the legal petition has been won, but the court-ordered suspension does prevent further implementation of these projects due to the irreversible risks posed to the environment and cultural rights. Although the suspension remains in force, the court has not yet issued a final ruling on the case or on the legal status and rights of the Ring of Cenotes.