“A Hidden Paradise Under Threat” tells the tale of destruction of sinkhole lakes, known as cenotes, in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
Cenotes are part of a fragile system of subterranean caverns, rivers and lakes that wind almost surreptitiously beneath the peninsula. They’re sacred for Indigenous Mayans and a crucial source of freshwater in the region.
But construction of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s crown jewel project – the Maya Train – is rapidly destroying part of that hidden underground world, embedding thousands of steel pillars into the caverns to support the tracks.
This immersive presentation takes the viewer underwater to explore the beauty of what’s at risk not only with the massive train project, but also urban development and mass tourism.
When AP video journalist and producer Teresa de Miguel got a tip in early 2024 about the first steel pillars being embedded into the caverns, she teamed up with AP photographer Rodrigo Abd to work on an in-depth story about the mounting threats to this ecosystem.
Sources that de Miguel had been cultivating for years — from the scientific community and environmental defenders on the ground — were key to help document the destruction. Both certified scuba divers, de Miguel and Abd used a camera housing to dive in several cenotes and submerged caverns to show the turquoise waters full of life that are under threat.
To film the pillars being embedded into the caverns, the duo had to walk long stretches of jungle and swim for dozens of meters (with their gear packed in dry bags) along underground rivers to reach the huge steel pillars.
The challenges of gathering visuals on the ground went far beyond technical difficulties.
The government charged the military with the train and has kept absolute secrecy about the project. Not even the final route of the tracks was public when the work was already underway, and the maps shared by the government did not reflect the last-minute changes made at the time of construction.
With the aim of revealing the data that the government and the military wanted to keep secret, the AP team spent days touring the train construction site, flying a drone at various points and analyzing satellite images shared by environmentalists and scientists on the ground to gather data on the various caves impacted by the train work.
With the help of designer and developer Caleb Diehl, they produced several interactive maps to visualize the data and show the size of the impact of the work on the groundwater system.
With hundreds of photos and hours of footage and interviews, de Miguel teamed up with reporter Megan Janetsky to write a text that weaved together contrasting points of view on mass tourism, economic development, and environmental protection.
The result is a captivating immersive digital presentation on AP News that also included video loops, photo galleries, interactive maps, illustrations, text and an 11-minute short documentary.
