The Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) is building a hotel on the Tren Maya route within the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, in Campeche.
Sedena would be hiding the construction of this hotel by excluding it from official documents and not reporting it to UNESCO. This is because the Calakmul Biosphere is a mixed heritage of humanity.
“Economic activities are prohibited there,” Leticia Valenzuela told Animal Político. The citizen recalled that in the 90s, the government prevented her from installing a camp for small groups of tourists next to the road to the archaeological site of Calakmul.
“The authorities prevented me from doing so because it was the core area of the reserve.”
Citizen Leticia reported that she was very surprised when she discovered that, right at the point where she was prohibited from setting up her camp, Sedena was building one of the six Tren Maya Hotels.
The hotel was located on the edge of kilometers 60 of the highway that crosses the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, 10 km from the archaeological zone of the same name.
At the site, whose entrance is guarded by the National Guard and a security guard who does not allow taking photos, you can see a large palapa at the end of a hallway protected on both sides by a wall.
It is a two-story building with 144 rooms, a pool, spa, gym, spa, bar, cafeteria, store, and a parking lot with a capacity for 212 vehicles that occupy about three hectares.
The investigation by the news website Animal Político indicates that the Hotel Tren Maya does not respect the provisions established for the buffer zone of the Biosphere Reserve.
The Calakmul Biosphere consists of 728 thousand hectares – three times the size of Mexico City – dedicated, almost entirely, to the preservation of plant and animal species such as jaguars, ocelots, monkeys, toucans, and eagles.
The ancient Mayan city of Calakmul is also located in the natural area, one of the most important in the region two thousand years ago.
Due to its environmental and historical importance, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared Calakmul a mixed heritage of humanity.
However, the construction of the Tren Maya Hotel does not have or has not presented an Environmental Impact Statement.
TYT Newsroom