The end of the six-year term that demoted the protection of natural resources
What happened on the last Sunday of September 2024 synthesized the Mexican government’s disdain for environmental issues over the last six years. That day, in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, a few hours before the end of his presidential term, Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated the entire circuit that runs along the so-called Mayan Train, presented awards to the military personnel who built the project and, once again, disqualified the work of individuals and organizations that denounced the environmental damage caused by this mega-project.
López Obrador considered the start-up of the so-called Mayan Train to be “a feat.” He did not mention that in order to build this emblematic mega-project of his administration, more than 6659 hectares were deforested, the Mayan Jungle was further fragmented, a hotel was built within a Biosphere Reserve, communities were divided, environmental laws were ignored and cenotes, those caverns that protect subway water and give a special personality to the Yucatan Peninsula, were perforated.
For Mexico, the year 2024 represented the end of the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president who undertook what he himself termed the country’s Fourth Transformation. Throughout this transformation, he was criticized by experts, scientists, environmental and indigenous organizations for not respecting a territory considered to be among the most biodiverse.
In 2024, the same trend as in previous years continued: environmental issues were not a priority; on the contrary, they were sidelined. Specialists in the areas of forests, oceans, natural protected areas, environmental policy and non-governmental organizations that accompany environmental and territorial defenders agree.
Mexico ends the year 2024 with weakened environmental institutions and without operational capacity, with greater environmental degradation, with a strong criminalization of environmental and territorial defenders, with environmental crimes that remain unpunished, with oceans and forest areas without attention. As a consequence, the control of organized crime groups over natural spaces has become even more entrenched.
The serious: the weakening of institutions
Since his first year in office, Andrés Manuel López Obrador showed that the environment was not a priority or urgent issue. His priorities were in other areas, for example, in promoting Sembrando Vida, a social program in which he assures that the environmental component is reforestation. However, according to the experts interviewed, it is not aimed at restoring forest ecosystems. An example of this is that the program does not have environmental indicators that would make it possible to know its impact on biodiversity, soils and forest cover recovery.
López Obrador also placed at the center of his government the construction of mega-projects such as the Dos Bocas Refinery in an area with mangroves in Tabasco, the so-called Mayan Train in the Yucatán Peninsula or the Inter-Oceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), which includes the installation of at least ten industrial parks in Oaxaca and Veracruz.
“The development model [in Mexico] has favored the implementation of large projects arguing that they are triggers for economic growth, but overlooks their socio-environmental impacts and costs,” point out the 35 specialists who participated in the preparation of the document entitled Socio-environmental Agenda 2024.
In this publication, academics, scientists, members of civil organizations and former officials review the actions taken during the six-year term of López Obrador on issues such as water, agriculture, forests, energy, climate change, among others. Although they recognize that there have been advances in the protection of native corn, in trying to gradually eliminate the use of glyphosate and in not granting new mining concessions, in general the balance they present is negative.
“The national development policy persists in a model that has led to environmental degradation and the loss of biodiversity,” the group of 35 specialists emphasizes.
In addition, the government itself has downplayed and disregarded procedures such as popular consultation or studies such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), says Gustavo Alanís, executive director of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda).
Complaints about inadequately conducted popular consultations and EIAs that were presented out of time, with erroneous data, without considering all the accumulated impacts or whose information was reserved were constant in the iconic megaprojects of the sexenio, such as the Dos Bocas Refinery, the CIIT, the so-called Tren Maya and what is already known as “The ghost train in Sonora.”
The experts interviewed also highlight a recurring theme throughout López Obrador’s six-year term: the weakening of the institutions responsible for environmental management, caused by the budget cuts suffered by the sector, especially in 2020 and 2021. Although there was an increase for the following years, and in 2024 the budget for Environment and Natural Resources reached a little more than 70 billion pesos (more than three million dollars), most of that money went to the construction of hydraulic works.
“More than 80% of the environmental budget went to the Conagua (National Water Commission), despite its notorious corruption and submission to the interests of the large water-grabbing concessionaires,” highlight the authors of the Socio-environmental Agenda 2024.
The lack of budget for all the other areas of the environmental sector was resented and led to cascading problems. Among the most evident is the almost non-existent action of the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa), which lost its capacity to combat environmental crimes, such as illegal logging and fishing.
“The lack of budget and personnel meant that the environmental authority could not fulfill its attributions; that it was completely absent and omissive,” emphasizes Gustavo Alanís, executive director of Cemda.
This is also highlighted by those who wrote the Socio-environmental Agenda 2024: the decrease in the budget led the institutions “to the limit of inoperability and almost no presence in the field.” At the same time, they highlight that “a social phenomenon of utmost gravity has occurred: the advance of control of the territories by organized crime.”
The concerning: violence against environmental defenders
Before the López Obrador administration, Mexico already appeared on the list of the five countries with the highest number of aggressions against those who defend forests, rivers, mountains and everything that gives life to an ecosystem. Between 2012 and 2023 alone, 203 environmental and territorial defenders were murdered, according to data from Global Witness, a non-governmental organization that documents this violence.
During the six-year term of López Obrador 102 environmental and territorial defenders suffered lethal attacks, according to the documentation carried out by Cemda. In 2023, 20 of these murders were registered. And although everything seems to indicate that by 2024 the number of homicides decreased slightly, the records of human rights organizations also show that other forms of violence, especially criminalization, have been on the rise.
Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca, renowned human rights lawyer, and Antonio Díaz Valencia, leader of the indigenous community of Aquila, in the state of Michoacán, during a protest for missing persons in downtown Mexico City. Credit: Luis Antonio Rojas for Global Witness.
At least 61 people are linked to investigation files accused of various crimes, especially damage to communication routes. Most of these accusations arose after these people expressed their opposition to the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), as documented by a civil mission formed by members of organizations that toured some of the communities affected by this megaproject.
Communities that have denounced the contamination and dispossession of territory caused by the pig farms in the Yucatan Peninsula have also suffered criminalization. The El Coyul community has opposed the plans of private individuals seeking to develop a real estate project in a mangrove zone and turtle nesting area in Oaxaca.
Throughout López Obrador’s six-year term, other violence that gained strength was the stigmatization of people, communities and organizations defending the environment and territory. During the president’s daily morning conference, known as “la mañanera,” those who denounced the environmental damage caused by megaprojects were discredited.
Impunity was also established in many of the cases of environmental and territorial defenders murdered or disappeared, as has happened in the case of the disappearance of the lawyer Ricardo Lagunes and professor Antonio Díaz, which occurred in January 2023. The year 2024 ended without them or 37 other defenders being located.
Gabriela Carreón, co-coordinator of TerraVida, an organization that accompanies people and communities defending the environment and territory, points out that the fact that the construction of megaprojects – such as the CIIT or the so-called Tren Maya – have been in charge of the military, unleashed diverse dynamics in the territories. One of them was to suppress social protest.
“Mexico’s institutions have not been up to the task of guaranteeing the safety of environmental and territorial defenders, nor of combating the impunity that persists in this violence,” says Carreón. And that is why one of the debts left by the year 2024 is the implementation of the Escazú Agreement.
Carreón considers that, despite the fact that Mexico was one of the countries that promoted the implementation of the Escazú Agreement, in the national territory “there has been a lack of will on the part of the institutional agencies to implement it.” And there are two areas where it is clear that the agreement is still only on paper: there are still no specialized judges in environmental matters and there are major problems in access to environmental information, since many environmental data are not updated or access to them is denied.
In Mexico, moreover, the defense of the environment and territory was not only confronted with megaprojects promoted by the State or by companies. In 2024, the presence of organized crime groups that have made species trafficking, fishing and logging part of their business was even more evident.
The critical: the control of organized crime in forested areas
Chihuahua, Durango, Mexico State and Michoacán are some of the states in the country where residents have reported cases in which organized crime has taken control of community forest management. This has been documented by Iván Zúñiga, manager of Forest Landscapes at the World Resources Institute (WRI), who has been working on the issue of sustainable forest management since 1995. In those states, “[people linked to organized crime] have taken over the boards of directors of forest management organizations, they are in charge of sawmills or the supply chain of forest products.
Zúñiga is one of the authors who participated in the chapter dedicated to forest regions, included in the Socio-environmental Agenda 2024. In that section it is noted that “the empowerment of criminal groups has increased illegal logging, even in regions where communities had advanced in the sustainable management of the territories.”
It also mentions that illegal logging “has become a growing and widespread problem.” According to the document, it is estimated that between seven to nine million cubic meters of roundwood are illegally harvested each year. This represents between 95 and 120% of all legal timber harvesting in the country.
Just over 70 % of the national territory is home to a forest ecosystem. Even so, the forestry sector was neglected: “It was not seen as an elemental productive sector for the development of several regions of the country. It was not adequately promoted, especially during the second part of the six-year term,” says Zúñiga.
The State’s lack of capacity to attend to the forestry agenda, caused by the decrease in the budget of the National Forestry Commission (Conafor), was one of the several ingredients that paved the way for what is now being suffered in many of the country’s forest territories, for example, the increase in the presence of pests and diseases, as well as fires that are affecting an increasingly larger area, as shown by Conafor’s own data.
The country was also unable to reduce the loss of forest area: if in 2022, at least 179,000 hectares were left without tree cover, by 2023 that figure rose to 226,000 hectares, according to the most updated analysis of the Global Forest Watch platform.
One of the regions of the country that has lost the most forest cover is the Yucatan Peninsula. Between 2019 and 2023, at least 285 580 hectares ceased to be forest land, according to data from a satellite image analysis platform developed by the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS), under the technical direction of Dr. Edward Ellis. This tool shows that the causes of deforestation in this region were the construction of the so-called Tren Maya and the Tulum international airport, the expansion of agribusiness and pig and poultry farms, the establishment of pastures and real estate developments.
In Hopelchén, Campeche, for example, the expansion of agribusiness has generated much of the loss of forest cover, as documented by Mongabay Latam in August 2022. In that municipality, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) held roundtables with the Mennonites who deforested the land without having the authorization to change land use. These talks did not stop the deforestation. Agribusiness continues to expand in the area. “There is a big problem generated by the lack of governmental capacity to ensure compliance with laws. There is enormous impunity for illegal land use changes,” Zúñiga remarked.
The forgotten: the fishing sector
Mexico is among the 20 countries in the world with the highest fishing production, and it is the activity that employs more than two million people. In addition, the country’s 263 coastal municipalities are home to more than 15 million people.
Despite the importance of marine life for Mexican territory, during the six-year term of López Obrador, the National Commission of Aquaculture and Fisheries (Conapesca) remained blurred, especially because the person who headed the agency -Octavio Almada Palafox-, from 2021 to September 2024, “abandoned the sector and did nothing to meet the goals of the sectoral plan,” says Esteban García-Peña Valenzuela, public policy coordinator for Oceana’s Mexico office.
For example, the goals of creating networks of fishing refuges, reducing poverty in the fishing sector, promoting adaptation to climate change, strengthening surveillance and combating illegal fishing were not met.
There are data that show the neglect: if between the years 2009 and 2014 there were 183 federal fisheries officers for the whole country, this number decreased to 161 between 2018 and 2022. In addition, if for the period 2009 to 2014 1228 people were arrested accused of illegal fishing, between 2018 and 2023 there were only 59. “There are fewer inspectors, less budget and there is no real fight against illegal fishing, which is the scourge of fishing,” highlights García-Peña.
In Mexico, according to the Statistical Yearbook of Fisheries published in 2023, between 1.8 and 2.1 million tons of fish are caught each year, without taking into account illegal fishing, which would represent 40% more than that amount, according to some estimates.
García-Peña mentions that illegal fishing is already affecting at least 300 species of commercial importance, among them the Gulf of Mexico red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), snook (Centropomus undecimalis), mullet (Mugil cephalus), red grouper (Epinephelus morio), pink shrimp (Farfantepenaeus duorarum), among others.
The abandonment of the fishing sector is also reflected in the fact that no progress has been made in updating the status of fishing species and that only 30% of the country’s fisheries have management plans. García-Peña comments that this has led to the fact that 28 of the 83 recognized fisheries are in a deteriorated condition or that their exploitation exceeds the “maximum sustainable exploitation.”
In 2024 there was also no work done to provide alternatives to fishermen who are increasingly facing greater adversities due to the presence of more frequent and intense hurricanes or due to the effects of climate change in several fisheries. “There is no adaptation of public policies to these scenarios,” says the Oceana expert.
In this sense, Gustavo Alanís, executive director of Cemda, recalls that the Mexican government set aside the entire agenda for mitigation and adaptation to climate change, by maintaining a regressive energy policy: “It was a bet on fossil fuels: a new refinery was built and coal-fired power plants, oil and gas were promoted”.
In addition, despite López Obrador’s commitment to end fracking, this practice continued to be carried out and more than 62 billion pesos were allocated between 2018 and 2024 in projects involving the use of this hydrocarbon extraction technique that causes a decrease in water availability, according to data included in the Socio-environmental Agenda 2024.
The good (but not so good): more natural areas on paper
At the beginning of his administration, López Obrador announced that one of his environmental goals was to decree 50 new Natural Protected Areas (NPAs). In 2024, the pace was accelerated to fulfill the promise. In fact, on the last day of the six-year term, six new areas were decreed.
Mexico now has 232 NPAs, but 106 of them do not have a management program, a vital document to know what are the threats to the places and the best strategies to conserve the sites. “We cannot advance in the protection of biodiversity and biocultural spaces if we do not have this instrument,” says Gina Ileana Chacón, director of public policy at Wildlands Network Mexico, a civil society organization that is part of the Northwest Coalition of Civil Society for Environmental Sustainability (NOSSA).
In addition, many of the NPAs do not have a budget or staff. Chacón gives as an example the case of the Jaguar Flora and Fauna Protection Area (APFF Jaguar), created in mid-2022 in the municipality of Tulum, in Quintana Roo, and whose management program was published in February 2024, but which has no resources allocated and only has two people working in the area that has just over 2249 hectares.
“We don’t want natural areas on paper. Even if they have a management plan, if they don’t have a budget, it is not possible to do much to guarantee their protection,” emphasizes Chacón.
The APFF Jaguar was created right in one of the zones through which the so-called Tren Maya passes and was presented as if it were a compensation for the construction of the megaproject. In this sense, Chacón emphasizes that “the creation of a NPA cannot compensate for the fragmentation of an ecosystem such as the Maya Forest. This fragmentation puts at risk the survival of the ecosystem as a whole and the biodiversity, especially of emblematic species such as the jaguar.”
Decreeing more areas without providing them with a management program or budget was not the only incongruity observed during the last year of López Obrador’s administration. Before the end of the six-year term, Semarnat officials authorized Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for the construction of tourism developments in areas adjacent to Cabo Pulmo National Park.
The revocation of one of these authorizations was one of the first actions taken by Alicia Bárcena, as the new head of Semarnat, following the arrival of Claudia Sheinbaum to the Mexican presidency.
The Hopeful: Appointments in the Environmental Sector
On October 1, 2024, physicist and doctor in energy engineering Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo took office as Mexico’s first female president. It is also the first time that the country’s presidency is in charge of someone who was never part of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that governed the country for more than 70 years and where López Obrador began his political career.
Sheinbaum was also part of the group of more than 600 academics and researchers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The President appointed biologist and diplomat Alicia Bárcena, who was Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the last year of López Obrador’s administration and was executive director of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), where she promoted the Escazú Agreement, as head of Semarnat.
People who are recognized for their technical capacity and experience in environmental issues have also been appointed to the undersecretariats and different environmental agencies. The appointment of the fishing engineer Alejandro Flores Nava as head of Conapesca, and of the agronomist and researcher Julio Berdegué Sacristán as head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SAGARPA) has also been applauded.
“There is enthusiasm, because we see the possibility of having, once again, a cordial and respectful relationship with the environmental authority”, says Gustavo Alanís, about the appointments in the environmental sector.
Alanís’ opinion is not isolated. The arrival of people with experience and scientific knowledge in the environmental sector has been celebrated among various non-governmental organizations and even in international forums.
Alanís, for example, recalls that during the last United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP16) held in Cali, Colombia, “it was celebrated that Mexico was back with prepared environmental authorities, with experience in the issues. This has generated a very positive expectation”.
That expectation will now face reality, especially if the government of Claudia Sheinbaum assumes the same position of her predecessor and, over the next few years, punishes the environmental sector with a minimal budget. Something that is already looming, at least for 2025.
Cover image: The inhabitants of Homún, Yucatán, live from the natural ponds found within the State Geohydrological Reserve Anillo de Cenotes. Photo: Benjamín Magaña
Original article by THELMA GÓMEZ DURÁN published in Mongabay Latam.
English translation by Schools for Chiapas.