MEXICO CITY (CN) — A failure to enforce a landmark ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court on environmental impact studies threatens the Gulf of Mexico’s largest coral reef, according to lawyers working to halt the expansion of the port at Veracruz.
“This often happens in Latin America — we take a case to the highest court, but the problem lies in the execution of the rulings,” said Sandra Moguel, a lawyer with the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), in a phone interview Thursday.
AIDA and fellow environmental law organization Earthjustice have worked within Mexico’s legal system for years to stop the project in an attempt to save the Veracruz Reef System from the destructive effects of the port’s expansion.
Mexico’s Supreme Court set a precedent in February 2022 when it ruled that such developments must undergo environmental impact studies in a comprehensive way that takes the entire project into account.
Prior to the ruling, developers had been able to carry out piecemeal environmental impact studies that hindered authorities’ ability to do a complete assessment.
Despite that ruling, the country’s national environmental secretariat Semarnat awarded the project a second permit on Dec. 30, 2022, without requiring a new environmental impact study, the organizations say.
Semarnat based the assessment that led to the new permit on deficient statements from the first fragmented environmental studies and failed to submit the assessment to preliminary public consultation, according to the organizations.
Neither Semarnat nor Asipona Veracruz, the state-owned port administration company run by Mexico’s navy, responded to a request for comment.
AIDA and Earthjustice filed an amicus brief in a Veracruz district court Wednesday in an attempt to force Semarnat to reexamine the project based on the environmental impact study procedure ordered by the Supreme Court. The lower court will determine whether or not the granting of the new permit complied with the high court’s ruling.
“The authorities must comply with the Supreme Court ruling and protect this internationally-recognized natural treasure of Mexico,” said Earthjustice attorney and Veracruz native Guillermo Zúñiga in a press release issued Wednesday.
Zúñiga stressed the importance of Mexican citizens’ right to a healthy environment, which was enshrined in the country’s Constitution in 1999.
“The reef not only hosts the greatest biodiversity of species in the central region of the Gulf of Mexico, but also helps mitigate the impact of storm surges and hurricanes,” he said. “The people who grew up here, as I did, and who live here now, know the value of this sanctuary where land and sea harmonize in unity.”
One of 134 UNESCO biosphere reserves in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Veracruz Reef System spreads out over 200 square miles from Mexico’s central Gulf Coast. Its 23 reefs are homes are home to 84 different species of coral, over 330 mollusks, 140 crustaceans and 47 sponges, according to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
It is also a key point in the migratory routes of the endangered hawksbill and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.
The original environmental study for the project did not evaluate its impact as a complete project, but rather broke it up into 15 separate permits and completely excluded a reef called La Loma located in the Veracruz Reef System National Park.
Semarnat also failed to comply with the Supreme Court ruling by not seeking the support of Mexico’s National Council of Natural Protected Areas or the International Wetlands Committee.
“The involvement of the international committee would bring a bit more openness and legitimacy to the evaluation process in this questionable project,” said Moguel.
Construction on the port expansion is currently suspended pending the lower court’s review of the Supreme Court ruling, but the slow pace of the Mexican legal system has allowed developers to nearly finish the project.
The legal process that led to the February 2022 ruling began in 2016.
“It’s exhausting for civil society,” said Moguel. “We’ve seen very little results in nearly eight years.”
AIDA and Earthjustice view this as a watershed moment for conservation efforts in Mexico and Latin America.
“It’s important to win jurisprudence through the Supreme Court, but the ultimate goal is to create real protection for the natural world, in this case the coral reefs of the Veracruz system,” she said.
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