Mexico City, April 8, 2025. More than 15 Mayan communities from Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and allies from Mexico, Belize, and Colombia met on March 29 and 30 on Isla Arena, Campeche, to analyze common threats to their territories and articulate defense strategies. Participants included representatives from Cherán (Michoacán), Mixtec communities, Binizá, and even the Inga community of Colombia, sharing experiences of autonomy.
“These threats put our existence as Mayan peoples at risk,” the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) stated in a statement. Faced with projects such as pig farms, mega-tourism developments, mining, and carbon offsets, they agreed to create the Mayan Assembly for Autonomy and a Mayan Council to coordinate actions.
The document emphasizes that problems such as land dispossession, agribusiness, and expropriations will no longer be addressed in isolation: “We are convening, meeting, and organizing.” The initiative seeks to strengthen local resistance through self-determination, inspired by examples such as the autonomous government of Cherán.
With a hopeful message, the communities emphasized their commitment to future generations: “Those of us who are now are seeds, we are sowing and fishing hands, we are those who pave the way for those who will come after us… We prefer to leave them an experience of struggle, we prefer to leave them a lesson in rebellion, we prefer to leave them the hope that we can continue living as a Mayan people in harmony with the Yuumts’ilo’ob and Mother Earth.”
The assembly was also described as an “open door” for more Mayan communities to join in the construction of their own alternatives and to emphasize the determination to forge their own paths and their own course as a Mayan People.
