CAMPECHE: Mexico’s Maya tourist train glided into action, promising prosperity for one of the country’s poorest regions, but tainted by allegations of environmental devastation.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hailed his flagship project as a “magnum opus” built in “record time” ahead of the inauguration, during which he boarded one of its green-and-white cars for the train’s first run between the colonial city of Campeche and the Caribbean resort of Cancun.

Cancun is Mexico’s leading tourist destination and welcomed 34 million foreign visitors between January and October, according to official figures.

The stretch of rail inaugurated on Friday is the first of seven sections that will cover a total of 1,554 kilometers around the Yucatan Peninsula, an area rich in flora, fauna and archaeological ruins. The others will be operational in the first quarter of 2024.

The route includes parts of the Mayan Riviera, which covers a jungle region considered the second-most important forest reserve in Latin America after the Amazon, as well as cenotes — freshwater caves — and underground rivers.

Activists and environmental organisations said the project caused massive damage to the region’s ecosystem, dubbing it an “ecocide,” and succeeded in temporarily halting work through legal appeals.

But Lopez Obrador issued a decree declaring the infrastructure works a matter of “national security” and construction resumed. Greenpeace and other NGOs have warned that the train threatens to contaminate cenotes and underground rivers in particular.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2023