International Rights of Nature Tribunal, 8th Local Hearing: Tren Maya 2023

Summary

In March 2023, the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature held its eighth local hearing in Yucatán, Mexico, on the case of the Tren Maya. This mega-project has affected priority freshwater ecosystems and communities in southern Mexico. In June 2022, the Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan Territory Múuch’ Xíinbal and the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry approached the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature and presented the case of the impacts of the Mayan Train. The case was presented by affected indigenous communities and specialists from the region. It was heard by a panel of world-renowned and deserving judges who examined the case from the perspective of the Rights of Nature.

The Mayan Train will run for 1,500 kilometers and cross the southeastern Mexico states: Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. This region is home to 33% of Mexico’s fresh water. The train route runs through regions considered significant areas of biodiversity. It constitutes the territories of Mayan communities that have inhabited these lands since ancestral times, which have maintained traditional practices, living in harmony with nature. The Mayan territory, the co-evolution of thousands of years between its culture and habitat, will suffer irreversible transformations in its socio-environmental components. This will represent an irreparable loss of the biocultural diversity that characterizes the southeastern region of Mexico. The construction and entry into operation of the project will imply an increase in deforestation from 9,786 hectares per year to 12,189.2 hectares per year between 2018 and 2030 of wet and dry forests, representing almost 10 million trees. They will affect unique and sacred subway caverns such as cenotes, caves, and aquifers home to many endemic species, as the train route will pass over these ecosystems. Other collateral effects of this transformation of ecosystems include noise pollution, fires, damage to water reserves and waste management, damage to wildlife, contamination of the rainforest, and fragmentation of ecosystems, among others.

The project was initiated without environmental impact statements, and there have been irregularities in its implementation and approval. In addition, the right to participation and decision-making of the Mayan communities whose territory will be affected has not been duly respected, which affects their right to self-determination.

In the verdict of the Court, the judges hold the Mexican State responsible for “the violation of the Rights of Nature and the biocultural rights of the Maya People, who have been and continue to be protectors and guardians of their territory”, the sentence also declares the cenotes as a subject of rights, “since they constitute the most important source of water for the survival of the people, communities and animal and plant species in the region”, communities and animal and plant species of the region” and as measures of integral reparation, the Court exhorts the Mexican State to ‘immediately suspend the Mayan Train Megaproject, restore all ecosystems affected by the construction of the Mayan Train, as well as the demilitarization of the Indigenous territories’, among others.

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