Mexico Declares Natural Reserve in Mining Extraction Zone in Quintana Roo
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shows the environmental damage caused by Vulcan Materials, Sept. 24, 2024. X/ @emeequis
September 26, 2024 Hour: 9:16 am
A subsidiary of the U.S.-based Vulcan Materials Co. has caused environmental destruction in the Mexican Caribbean region.
On Wednesday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) defended the designation of a nature reserve in the Quintana Roo state, despite the presence of a U.S.-owned company on the land.
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“This is not an expropriation, it is a declaration of a protected natural area,” he said, referring to the declaration of a 53,227-hectare nature reserve in the municipalities of Solidaridad, Tulum, and Cozumel.
The company Calica, a subsidiary of the U.S. construction firm Vulcan Materials, was called out by President AMLO for causing environmental destruction in the Mexican Caribbean under permits granted by prior administrations.
“Imagine, they are taking gravel from paradise because it is one of the most beautiful areas in Mexico and the world, the Caribbean Sea, to build roads in the United States,” he said, stressing that Mexico is right in protecting its territory and natural resources.
On Tuesday, the Vulcan Materials company warned that it would take legal action and seek international arbitration because the events represent an “expropriation” that violates the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC).
U.S. Republican and Democratic legislators have questioned Lopez Obrador’s actions, but he insisted that he sought a negotiated solution with the company. In 2022, the Mexican president announced that he would denounce the Vulcan Materials mining company to the United Nations and the stock exchanges for causing an “ecological disaster” in Quintana Roo and fomenting protests against the Mayan Train.
He also defended the fact that the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) closed the limestone extraction that Vulcan Materials was doing in Playa del Carmen in May of that year after warning of the existence of probable serious damage and deterioration to the ecosystems. “We are not going to allow them to destroy our territory,” AMLO reiterated on Wednesday.
teleSUR/ JF Sources: Xinhua – EFE
