VIDEO. In Mexico, a Mayan train project to develop tourism worries the inhabitants

Perceived as a threat to underground rivers and wildlife, the plan to build a Mayan train to boost tourism in parts of Mexico is poorly received by some locals and activists. In particular, they denounce its environmental impact and the irreversible damage it can cause to the country’s natural and cultural heritage. The Mayan train is however supposed to open a series of commercial and social opportunities, beneficial for the inhabitants and local businesses.

To oppose this construction project, a group of activists recently asked UNESCO to stop the work. “We are not opposed to the president, nor to the train project itself. But we are opposed to it being done here, because this ecosystem is very fragile.“From the risk of the rock faces collapsing to the contamination of the water, several factors reinforce the reluctance of the locals towards this project. “It worries us a lot, because this region lives off tourism and there would be no tourism without ecology, without the transparent turquoise sea, without the white sand beaches, without the cenotes, without the Mayan culture. The Mayans venerated these caves, they were their sacred sites, their temples.”