Photograph Source: Thelmadatter – CC BY-SA 3.0

“The military operates behind our backs,” says Pedro Uc Be. “We know they will start mining, but they work in darkness, and for that precise reason we haven’t been able to say anything concrete about it.”

Uc Be is a Mayan activist with Múuch’ Xíinbal, the Assembly of Defenders of Mayan Territory. He has been resisting megaproject developments on Mayan land for over a decade. Now, his land is threatened by military mining activity.

Government records show that Mexico’s Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) holds 21 mining authorizations in Quintana Roo, which sits within the Yucatán biodiversity corridor that was fractured by the Tren Maya, a tourist train in the Yucatán Peninsula. Greenpeace has also identified at least 26 rock extraction sites approved to be deforested and dynamited in the area, most linked to the same military-owned venture.

SEDENA’s expansion from infrastructure construction to mining is symptomatic of a broader change in the role of Mexico’s Armed Forces. Once dedicated exclusively to issues of defense, Mexico’s military now manages and owns companies dedicated to mining, aviation, and hospitality. This commercial shift, enabled by opaque processes justified under the language of “national security,” has had destructive consequences for Mexico’s biodiversity and Indigenous communities.

Tren Maya Controversy

The Tren Maya started as a tourist transportation initiative launched by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to spur inclusive economic development in Mexico’s south. With an estimated cost of $28.6billion and counting—up from $7.5 billion at inception—the railway connects five states throughout the Yucatán Peninsula and includes stations, hotels, and museums, alongside urban development.

Despite its promises, the project was met with fierce opposition from Indigenous communities, environmental groups, and human rights watchdogs. UNESCO condemned the lack of environmental impact assessments, Mexican courts ruled that it violated the human right to a healthy environment, and the International Tribunal for the Right of Nature called the train initiative a “crime of ecocide and ethnocide.”

Facing mounting opposition, the government fast-tracked construction by invoking national security measures in the 2021 National Security Decree, which declared the Tren Maya and other megaprojects matters of importance to the public interest and national security. With this decree, the government circumvented constitutionally recognised obligations to implement prior consultation procedures, respond to transparency requests, and perform environmental and social impact assessments. The consequence, explained Uc Be, was that “our protections no longer had any effect.”

Thereafter, the military’s role expanded dramatically. SEDENA took over construction, and the National Guard—AMLO’s newly created public security force—began surveillance operations of Yucatan residents, with little accountability. Reports soon emerged of harsh working conditions,

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