Veracruz ecological reserve in danger due to rock extraction activities

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The Maya Train Project has been criticized by civil associations for the environmental risks and negative impacts on the entire Mexican southeast region.

Environmentalists have warned about the extraction of basalt stone from Balzapote, a town located in the Municipality of San Andrés Tuxtla, for one full year now. The material is presumably destined for the Maya Train Project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The Mexican southeast is an area of ​​high biological wealth and importance, where the conservation and protection of the Maya jungle, the aquifer, and its biodiversity is fundamental.

Eduardo Álvarez Ríos, a member of the Association of Environmental Defenders of Los Tuxtlas (DEMATAC) warns that the exploitation of stone material in a biosphere reserve was authorized “for another ecocidal project such as the Maya Train”; state environmental authorities such as the Ministry of the Environment (Sedema) have avoided talking about the issue.

In the state of Veracruz, there are 101 Protected Natural Areas, both state, federal, private, farming communities, and others, the highest category being biosphere reserves, but the only one with these characteristics is the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve.

Alvarez Rios concluded that of the 1,080 species of birds that exist throughout the country, 564 species have their habitat in Los Tuxtlas, more than half of those that exist in all of Mexico.

Source: OEM

Veracruz Daily Post