Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Katie Weaver.

And I'm Mario Ritter, Jr. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower,

and we use words and phrases, especially written, for people learning English.

Coming up on the show, Brian Lynn brings us the Health and Lifestyle Report.

He tells about plans to offer to many poor countries a very effective twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV infection.

Experts have called the treatment the closest the world has ever come to developing a vaccine against HIV.

We close the show with the Learning English Lesson of the Day.

Based on our video series, let's learn English.

But first, a report out of Mexico, where people are calling for special recognition of hundreds of underground lakes, known as the Ring of

Cenotes. Here is Jill Robbins with the story. In the Mexican state of Yucatan, hundreds of underground lakes form a semi-circular shape in the northwestern part of Yucatan state.

They are called the Ring of Senotes.

The lakes provide water for the area, but they are also part of a dispute between local people and pig farmers.

The cenotes are also important to local people who earn a living by leading foreign visitors into the caverns to swim and explore.

Maribel Eik lives in the community of Homo, near the cenote known as Santa Maria.

To native Mayans like Aik, Sanotes are holy.

She calls the Santa Maria Sanote her neighbor. That belief is behind a legal action or lawsuit that aims to have the ring of Senotes legally recognized as a person.

Personhood would give the lakes the same rights and protections of law that human citizens have a mayan organization called guardians of the senotes has brought the lawsuit

it aims to keep large pig farms out of the area because they are affecting the water quality of the

underground lakes. If the group wins, the lakes will become the first ecosystem in Mexico

to be considered a person. There have been other such cases worldwide, such as the Wanganui River in New Zealand,

or the Komi Menem River in the Brazilian Amazon.

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