The ship “Melody” loaded with 20,000 tons of porphyrite from Cuba and that will serve as ballast for the Mayan Train, a famous work of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, damaged an area of coral that is located between two protected natural areas with the anchor. who are in Puerto Morelos, denounced the diver and underwater videographer Alberto Friscione.
In an interview with EFE, he explained that last Friday during a tour he took in the company of a friend, they detected that the maneuvers to anchor the ship caused damage to several coral specimens that are protected by Mexican law.
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“We went to dive precisely at the anchor, the water was beautiful and we went just out of curiosity because the area where the ship was anchored is an area allowed for anchoring, it is an area that divides the reefs of Puerto Morelos and the Greater Caribbean reserve” , he pointed.
“There are always sponges, brain corals, staghorn corals, there are various types of corals that are protected by law,” he added.
As he explained, the problem arose when the anchor was dropped, which he considers was due to the lack of supervision of the maneuvers in progress.
“When they dropped the anchor, it fell on top of many gorgonians, they pulled the entire chain several meters and as the ship was born the chain moved and began to break the few or many corals that were there,” he explained.
“This problem would have been eliminated if they had asked any of the people from Puerto Morelos to go check where the anchor is going to be dropped and we would have avoided this problem,” he explained.
Alberto Friscione pointed out that when the damage to the corals was made public, the ship “Melody” was withdrawn from the affected area and is currently near the island of Cozumel.
“The ship moved to an area, now assigned by Conanp (National Commission of Protected Natural Areas) where there is a larger sandbank and there are much fewer species than where it was previously,” he said.
He pointed out that through various channels they are in the process of filing the corresponding complaints for environmental damage, in which they seek to officially establish whether the anchor caused affectations within some of the area’s protected natural areas.
“A protected natural area is called the Puerto Morelos reefs and it has been decreed for many years, and the other area is called the Greater Mexican Caribbean reserve. The two are almost together. The reserve of the Greater Mexican Caribbean is very large, it covers many hectares of sea and beach ”, he explained.
He commented that they were able to identify damaged species such as brain coral, biscuit coral, a barrel sponge and many patches with different species of corals.
“If any of us is seen touching one of these corals, they will almost put you in jail and it is not possible for them to arrive and drop the anchor voluntarily or involuntarily and cause such great destruction that we saw just now,” he said.
Friscione recalled that they recently participated in a project to sow “almost 2,000 bits of coral.”
“It is fascinating to go see them, we returned happy that one had grown one centimeter, half a centimeter, that others were alive and it feels horrible that you are trying to save life in the sea so that someone arrives and destroys it just because they have to bring stone from Cuba,” he lamented.
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“I can’t believe that in these modern times we continue to hurt nature in such a way, I can’t believe the truth and all because of the Mayan Train project,” he said.
