Riviera Maya, Q.R. — Personnel of Calica (SacTun) have been granted access to the property, but only for restoration purposes. The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) says a judge has ordered the company to restore the area under environmental control and monitoring.
On Wednesday, the Twenty-Third Collegiate Court for Administrative Matters of the First Circuit based in Mexico City determined that the company may enter the properties only to remediate, compensate and restore the exploited area under the supervision of environmental authorities.
In a statement, the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Semarnat) said they are “pleased to report that the decision issued Wednesday was favorable to the request for suspension of Calizas Industriales del Carmen SA de CV, which represents an important achievement for the Government of Mexico in the defense of its natural resources.”
During the public session, the federal court determined that company Calica must be allowed to enter the quarry premises only to remediate, compensate and restore the exploited area under the supervision of the environmental authority, as requested by the federal agency at the time.
Semarnat argued before the collegiate court that Calica’s request for suspension to allow restoration must include the obligations to develop a program from the beginning of the project, restore wildlife corridors, reforest, as well as develop a schedule, as determined in the environmental authorization granted in 2000.
Furthermore, within the administrative annulment trial, it was demonstrated with expert evidence that Calica exploited twice the authorized amount, so in the more than 50 lawsuits promoted by the company since 2022, it has not managed to be allowed to continue with the extraction of limestone.
This double exploitation represents a systematic abuse of the environmental regulatory framework, compounded by the fact that the company did not obtain all the water concessions it was required to and never applied for a forestry permit. Nevertheless, it now maintains an international lawsuit accusing Mexico of the very violations it committed.
In response, the Mexican government requested permission to file an international countersuit against Vulcan, the company of which Calica is a subsidiary, a legal mechanism that is pending resolution before the international arbitration tribunal.
Semarnat is complying with President Claudia Sheinbaum’s instruction to participate in the dialogue with the company, prioritizing the conservation of the ecosystem and the protection of natural resources for Mexicans.
