Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, one of the country’s entertainment world’s heavy-hitters out to stop the Tren Maya project. Photo: Google

By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Some of Mexico’s biggest film and television royalty have joined forces to launch a campaign against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) Tren Maya, a massive 230 billion-peso tourist train project that environmentalists have warned will destroy over half the natural flora and fauna in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Last month, the government re-charted Section Five of the train’s railway, which would run from the tourist city of Cancun to the Maya archeological site of Tulum to Cancun, and that is what the entertainers are protesting because it will now pass through environmentally protected areas.

The film and television stars — that include some of the nation’s most important big- and small-screen celebrities, such as Eugenio Derbez, Kate del Castillo, Omar Chaparro, Saúl Hernández and Bárbara Mori — released a video on Tuesday, March 22, explaining the the new Tren Maya route will also destroy the largest underground river system in the world.

The video, which calls on the Mexican public to support the actors’ campaign through adding their names to the Twitter hashtag #Sélvamedeltren (#Savemefromthetrain), opens with comedian Eugenio Derbez warning that the Tren Maya project is destroying the nation’s natural heritage.

Next, singer-songwriter Natalia Lafurcade points out that the project is taking homes away from thousands of native animals.

”We are totally against the Tren Maya passing through a protected area,” adds Saúl Hernández, lead singer of Caifanes.

Also appearing in the video are Fabiola Campomanes, Azela Robinson, Ofelia Medina, Arao Bethke, Jero Medina, Gretel Valdés and Rocío Verdejo.

On  Wednesday, March 23, AMLO responded to the video in his daily press conference, saying that the participating artists were all “conservatives” and “fifis,” a disparaging term he uses to refer to what he considers to be elitists.