Campeche, (August 16, 2021).- After various complaints in municipalities of Campeche with the presence of jungle, such as Hopelchén and Calakmul, the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), summoned several Mennonite communities of the state to dialogue and sign a commitment that will stop the deforestation of the jungle area of the entity after confirming changes in land use, intensive crops and charcoal production, among other anomalies.
Federal officials such as Agustín Ávila Romero, general coordinator of the Center for Education and Training for Sustainable Development (Cecadesu) participated in the agreement; Alberto Escamilla Nava, head of the Forestry Development Promotion Office of the National Forestry Commission (Conafor); Jazmín Santineli, General Director of International Cooperation of the Security, Energy and Environment Agency (ASEA); Francisco Zebadúa, local director of the National Water Commission (Conagua); César Romero, representative of the Semarnat in the state; Carmen Senda Acosta, representative of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) in the region; Katia Meave Ferniza, Federal Programs delegate, and representatives from various Mennonite communities.
Among the signed agreements are that the Mennonite communities pledge their word to stop all activities that imply the deforestation of areas of the Maya jungle, this entails participating with the federal, state and municipal governments in the ecological ordering of the territory and setting up a table permanent work to attend to production issues, in order to establish more nature-friendly systems.
They will also touch on the issue of procedures, to streamline procedures before Semarnat to regularize and legalize productive activities, land tenure, to give certainty to the Maya communities about their agrarian property and to the Mennonite communities about the processes of buying and selling land; as well as attending to complaints and mitigation, in order to review administrative and criminal complaints against Mennonites and actions to repair and mitigate environmental damage.
With this first meeting, they announced that they will hold another on September 1st, in Hopelchén, so that if it is the case, they will have the possibility for the officials to make relevant tours in the area and have enough evidence so that the Mennonite communities understand that it is not an attack but establish work communication.
Source: La jornada maya
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