HOMUN, Mexico (AP) — A huge poplar tree stands proud in Maribel Ek’s courtyard, adorned with a sign that reads: “Florece desde adentro” (“It blooms from within”).

Deep underground, the tree’s long roots search for the water that makes this land special: a sinkhole lake, known as a cenote.

Cenotes provide an important water source to Ek’s community of Homun, in the Mexican state of Yucatan, and a livelihood for locals who lead tourists from around the world into the caverns to bathe in their crystalline waters.

But more than that, cenotes are sacred to Indigenous Mayans like her.

As she descends into the cavern, Ek shines a light on a stone covered in flowers, pots, and candles —the remains of an offering she made to thank the cenote for everything it has given her. She refers to the sacred space as her “neighbor,” one that needs protection.

That belief is the basis of a lawsuit that seeks personhood status for the Ring of Cenotes, made up of hundreds of subterranean lakes that surround the northwest of the Yucatan peninsula in a semicircle, and provide the main source of freshwater in the region.

The lawsuit, from the Indigenous Mayan organization Kana’an Ts’onot, or Guardians of the Cenotes, seeks to protect the area from further contamination by industries that have moved there to take advantage of the plentiful water. The group, as designated guardians, would be able to fight on behalf of the Ring of Cenotes in court.

If they win, this would become the first ecosystem in Mexico to have its own rights, following in the wake of other cases worldwide, such as the Whanganui River in New Zealand or the Komi Memem River in the Brazilian Amazon.

Ek, a member of the Guardians group, speaks of the cenote and its waters as a person, as she explains the reasons behind their fight.

“Because you have to be the voice, that she doesn’t have,” she said. “Because you have to be the hands, that she doesn’t have.”

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