Greenpeace Urges Halt to Maya Jungle Mining Amid New Threats

Cancún, Mexico — In a direct action marking the start of the week in Cancún, activists from Greenpeace Mexico scaled the local office of the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) today to demand an immediate end to federal authorizations permitting the exploitation of stone material banks, known as sascaberas, in the Maya Jungle.

From the top of the building, protesters unfurled a banner reading: “SEMARNAT: No More Calicas in the Maya Jungle!”—a reference to the extraction model operated for over 30 years by Calizas Industriales del Carmen (Calica), a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Vulcan Materials Company. The mine was shut down in 2022 after years of environmental destruction allegations.

Greenpeace warns that the same model is resurfacing under new companies like Cemex, which recently received authorization to deforest and blast approximately 650 hectares of virgin jungle near Tulum to operate a new material bank.

Protest in Cancún

As part of the demonstration, activists symbolically poured stone material at the entrance of Semarnat’s Cancún office to highlight the type of exploitation they claim continues under federal permits despite its environmental impact.

“This model keeps expanding across the Yucatán Peninsula with permits not only for Cemex but even for the Mexican Army (Sedena). It’s a systematic devastation of the jungle,” said Carlos Samayoa, coordinator of Greenpeace Mexico’s “México al grito de Selva” campaign.

According to the environmental group, sascaberas have already destroyed nearly 10,000 hectares of jungle in the peninsula, driven by unchecked urban development and infrastructure projects like the Maya Train.

The Francisco Uh May area, a Maya community near Tulum, is among the most affected by Cemex’s new operations. Greenpeace alleges the community was not consulted in a free, prior, or informed manner, as required by law, and that the planned activity threatens the region’s fragile underground river systems.

Maya Train Connection

Cemex’s own Environmental Impact Statement reveals that extracted materials would supply projects like the Maya Train, tourism developments, and the local real estate industry.

“It seems the Calica model was just nationalized, not stopped. Now it’s repeating under a different name but with the same damage: excavators tearing down trees and dynamite shattering entire ecosystems,” Samayoa warned.

Greenpeace also noted that while Semarnat has publicly acknowledged the Maya Train’s ecological impacts, actions to mitigate them have been insufficient. The organization demands the agency initiate a serious, participatory process to design a comprehensive protection plan for the Maya Jungle, including its aquifer—the country’s most vital freshwater reserve.

“We need more ambitious protection measures, both for the surface and the subsurface. Closing Calica wasn’t the end of the problem. The destruction continues under new names. That’s why we’re here,” Samayoa concluded.

The protest is part of Greenpeace’s “México al grito de Selva” campaign, which aims to expose and halt the expansion of extractive megaprojects in key ecosystems, particularly the Yucatán Peninsula.