Two years ago they began with this operation, by the side of the road they piled up the sascab and gravel and at night they put the machines to work.
Chetumal, Quinatana Roo, (August 24, 2021).- Inhabitants of Huay-Pix and Xul-Ha denounce that the closures established by the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) are nothing but a simulation because the developers of the Juan Sarabia ejido do not respect them and continue to destroy the mangrove behind the camp of the Communications and Transport Secretariat (SCT), at the exit to the town of Huay-Pix.
Extensive mangrove areas throughout the Estero de Chac are being devastated to build wooden bridges that free the area of wetlands that exists along the entire shore of that body of water so these lands can be commercialized.
To get to that area you have to take the old road in the so-called “dangerous curve”, just two kilometers from Huay-Pix towards Bacalar. It used to be an area of pure wetlands, but Ernesto Haro, when he was the Ejido commissioner, sent Marco Jiménez Potenciano, at that time his subordinate and now communal commissioner, to build dirt roads and buried protected vegetation, for which “they worked secretly at night,” said the caretaker of a ranch near the area.
Two years ago, they began with this operation, by the side of the road they piled up the sascab and gravel and at night they put the machines to work; they built more than three kilometers of road this way in order to reach the aforementioned lands.
“According to Profepa, the work was shut down, but that is not true, it continued,” said the interviewee, who preferred anonymity to avoid reprisals.
“The lands could not be marketed because they were pure wetlands, they were filled with sascab and mangroves were cut to place wooden piles on which they built bridges up to the water’s edge; Profepa suspended the works again, but they resumed the works just a few weeks ago, even though the closing signs are still there, ” he said.
The residents of the Juan Sarabia Ejido, assured that the current president of the Ejido commissariat, Marcos Jiménez Potenciano, presumes to have given a piece of land in that area to a Profepa official, “so that they can let them work quietly,” and apparently it is true, because the alleged closure signs that they placed there, are just pure simulation since there are no fines, jail, or punishment of any kind for the those responsible to destroy the mangroves, despite the fact that this a serious violation of the environment law that they are supposed to observe and protect,” the interviewee concluded.
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