|
|
Mexico's state oil company, Pemex, has defied a government order by cutting down protected mangroves at the site where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the construction of an oil refinery, according to sources familiar with the project. Satellite images show a landscape razed presumably to accommodate the controversial $8 billion peso project. The populist president made the Dos Bocas refinery project, located in his home state of Tabasco, central to his attempt to revive Pemex from its current dysfunction. Now Latin America's second-largest company by revenue, Pemex ran the Mexican economy in the 1960s and 1970s but lost $35 billion last year. For their part, critics say the refinery is not economically viable. Refinery. Mexico is destroying protected mangroves to build a refinery, they say The project so far has come at the cost of a mangrove forest, a tree treasured by conservationists and important for combating climate change. Trees create complex ecosystems that provide nearly 6% of Mexico's GDP, according to the University of California, San Diego. Swaths of the jungle, including a few dozen hectares of mangroves, were cut down by an outside company shortly after then-president-elect López Obrador announced the project in July 2018. Permission to start work was not issued until next year.
In January 2019, Mexico's environmental regulator, ASEA, fined the third party that caused the destruction with a financial estimate of $700,000. When ASEA finally gave Pemex a conditional construction permit in August 2019, it prevented the company from interfering with the remaining mangrove area. However, since that order more mangroves and other vegetation have been reduced in several areas of the site, and there are apparently multiple roads created to provide America Cell Phone Number List vehicle access where the mangroves previously lived, satellite images show. In private meetings, ASEA denied requests made by Pemex for several months last year to cut down more mangroves in order to build a bridge out of the swampy area, two sources familiar with the project told Quartz. Several smaller areas were also cleared in the period between ASEA handing out the fine in January and issuing the permit in August. Pemex and President López Obrador's office did not respond to requests for comment on this story. ASEA declined to comment until it saw the article published. "Those responsible for the deforestation could be imprisoned for up to 9 years if a site inspection confirms that more mangroves have been reduced," said Gustavo Alanis-Ortega, president of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law, a nonprofit organization. ASEA could separately impose additional fines and even revoke the construction permit, he said. He called the attorney general of Mexico and ASEA to investigate the case.
Yes, they are indeed violating the law in Dos Bocas, this shows that there is no real commitment to legality and the rule of law in the López Obrador government. However, ASEA is unlikely to crack down on Pemex, according to sources familiar with the project. Shortly after issuing the restrictive building permit, ASEA Executive Director Luis Vera Morales resigned. His replacement, Angel Carrizales López, is a former aide to López Obrador. He had been nominated by the president for other regulatory jobs last year, but lawmakers rejected him each time. His appointment to lead ASEA did not require legislative approval. Carrizales has since canceled the fine against the third party who admitted to the original destruction, sources told Quartz. Carrizales is afraid to take any action because he is always trying to reach good terms with the president. He would do anything, perhaps he would not directly authorize the felling of the trees, but he will not look there, he will allow everything to happen and turn a "blind eye." Mangroves, which generally live in shallow coastal waters, capture three to five times more carbon than inland flora and help protect against storms and floods caused by climate change.
|
|
發表於 2024-2-19 17:27:11