"Not a single tree will be felled." That was the promise made by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador before construction began on the 1,554 km Maya Train in December 2018.

Eight years later, at least 3.4 million trees have been felled, with some estimates putting the figure closer to 10 million. Pillars driven into the fragile limestone beneath the Yucatán Peninsula have polluted parts of the Great Mayan Aquifer and one of Mexico's largest infrastructure projects has transformed ecosystems that many scientists say cannot be restored.

Community groups, environmental organisations and lawyers responded by filing at least 25 major legal challenges and amparos seeking to halt construction. Judges repeatedly issued definitive suspensions ordering work to stop. Yet the federal government continued building by bypassing or legally outmanoeuvring judicial rulings. At the same time, environmental defenders faced escalating violence: at least 25 were murdered in 2024, while 236 attacks – including intimidation, harassment, criminalisation and defamation – were documented.

The Maya Train became one of the defining tests of environmental justice in Mexico, exposing both the possibilities and the limits of the country's constitutional protections. Yet, just as communities were learning to use those protections, the legal framework began to change. Through judicial reforms and amendments to the Amparo Law, interviewees argued that the balance of justice shifted decisively toward the state and the corporations carrying out strategic infrastructure projects.

This project draws on interviews with 21 environmental lawyers, constitutional scholars, scientists, community leaders and Maya activists, alongside field reporting on the Yucatán Peninsula. 

The project asks what happens when environmental justice is weakened from above through the erosion of democratic norms like accountability of power to the public – and how communities respond. In the face of shrinking legal protections, the interviews reveal that organisation, legal knowledge and collective memory have become forms of environmental defence. For journalists, understanding those responses is now as important as reporting the conflicts themselves.

How the Amparo Law was weakened

Communities challenging the Maya Train were learning how to use one of Mexico's most powerful constitutional safeguards: the amparo. For decades, it allowed judges to suspend projects before irreversible environmental damage occurred. Following constitutional reforms in 2011, communities no longer had to own land to defend it. Demonstrating that environmental harm threatened the collective good was enough to establish a legitimate interest.

That legal landscape changed in 2024.

Judicial reforms introduced by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador altered how judges are selected, replacing appointment on merit with election by popular vote. At the same time, amendments to the Amparo Law narrowed who could bring constitutional challenges and made preventive environmental protection more difficult.

The lawyers interviewed for this project repeatedly returned to three concerns:

• Amparos increasingly protect only those who file them, rather than entire affected communities. 
• Communities must now demonstrate more direct and immediate harm, making it harder to intervene before environmental damage becomes irreversible. 
• Judges have broader powers to dismiss cases early and greater scope to prioritise projects framed as being in the public interest.

Environmental lawyer Carla Aceves warned that these changes weaken the preventive purpose of environmental law because "by the time the damage can be conclusively demonstrated, it is already irreversible." 

Raúl Aldama Gavilán, an environmental and administrative lawyer specialising in litigation relating to mega projects and the protection of flora and fauna, argued that the reforms shifted power away from one of the few institutions capable of acting as a constitutional counterweight to the executive.

What journalists should do differently

The 21 experts interviewed for this project shared one consistent message: environmental conflicts are not only stories about nature. They are stories about power: who exercises it, who benefits from it and whose voices are excluded when decisions are made. Here are four lessons I learned from my conversations with them: 

1. Follow the law as closely as the landscape 

Many environmental stories focus on protests, court rulings or construction itself, but the most consequential developments often happen long before a bulldozer arrives. Journalists should understand the legal mechanisms communities rely on to challenge projects, follow constitutional litigation as closely as planning applications, and recognise when changes to legislation quietly alter the balance of power between citizens and the state. The field guide provided in the full project will help. 

2. Environmental reporting should be evidence-led rather than statement-led 

Government announcements and company press releases are only one source of information. The interviewees repeatedly pointed to Environmental Impact Statements, expert witness reports, hydrological studies, procurement records, public budgets, court filings and freedom of information requests as documents that often reveal a different story. Reading these sources alongside one another allows journalists to test official claims rather than simply repeat them.

3. Reporters should broaden who counts as an expert 

Scientists, constitutional lawyers and hydrologists remain essential sources, but so too are the communities who live with environmental change every day. Throughout the interviews, community leaders described documenting water quality, mapping environmental damage, recording oral histories and preserving Indigenous knowledge that later became evidence in court. These are not simply testimonies; they are forms of expertise.

4. Journalists should pay closer attention to institutions rather than only outcomes

 A court ruling, a consultation or an environmental permit is rarely the end of the story. Was the ruling implemented? Was consultation meaningful? Were environmental conditions monitored after approval? Which public bodies are responsible for enforcement, and what happens when they fail? Accountability reporting often lies in tracing what happened after the headline faded.

Conclusion

Environmental reporting should recognise that conflicts over the forests, rivers and aquifers of Mexico are also conflicts over democracy. They reveal how decisions are made, how rights are exercised and whether institutions remain capable of protecting the public interest. 

For journalists, understanding those questions is no longer a specialist legal exercise. It has become central to explaining how environmental governance works – and whose interests it ultimately serves.