The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Losing the Lagoons

by Kent Peterson - April 24-26, 2009

Standing in front of the Vicente Guerrero Elementary School as the children played, Obdulia Balderas recalls when she came to Zihuatanejo in the state of Guerrero more than 40 years ago. A young schoolteacher from the Guerrero town of Taxco, Balderas was haunted by the violence against dissident students and youth by Mexican security forces, who slaughtered hundreds in what has become known as the Tlatleloco Massacre.

Figuring that the quiet port of Zihuatanejo was a safer place and only a stone's throw from Acapulco, Balderas accepted a job as a third-grade teacher. She was surprised to discover that it took hours to reach the little Pacific bay on a winding, dusty dirt road.

Next to the school was a mangrove estuary where the children hauled out a hidden wooden raft and splashed and fished in the water during recess. Fresh water percolated in from a pristine arroyo that entered the bay.

That was in 1968. A few years later the administration of President Luis Echeverria expropriated communally-owned lands for a new tourist development, offering local landowners a small cut of the sales proceeds.

"It hit us like a big drinking binge," Balderas says. "We didn't realize what we were losing. They gave the (landowners) a little bit of money ... everyone felt like they were rich. Some bought a car, others got drunk. But they didn't realize what they were losing."

Today, little remains of Balderas' memories of Zihuatanejo. The mangroves have been torn out, the estuary drained, and the clean water replaced with a stream of water-born contaminants that enter the bay from a cement-lined canal. On the other side of Zihuatanejo's main beach, the dirty wastewater defiles the vestiges of a mangrove ecosystem that stretches to Las Salinas Lagoon. A man was recently charged for cutting down more than five acres of threatened mangrove trees at another local beach, Playa Larga.

Zihuatanejo was an appropriate place for the most recent meeting of the International Mangrove Network (IMN)-Mexico, a section of a network that draws together defenders of mangroves from across the globe. Characterized by lazy waters and droopy trees, mangroves constitute "the first scale of life," says Marco Antonio Rodriguez of Marea Azul, a non-governmental environmental group based in the Mexican state of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico.

Situated on the coasts of Latin America and much of the tropical world, mangrove estuaries are places where the hum of insects, the splash of fish, the flutter of birds, and the prowl of crocodiles can sometimes still convey a timeless natural world in an age where time is money and space a commodity. Tropical mangroves function to capture carbon, incubate numerous aquatic species, prevent coastal erosion, serve as windbreaks to storms, shelter migratory birds from the north, and nourish coastal communities and cultures, say Rodriguez and other members of the IMN-Mexico.

Threats to Mangrove Ecosystems

In today's Mexico, mangrove ecosystems are under growing pressure. Statistics compiled by Greenpeace Mexico and the federal Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources report that mangrove habitat in the country's coastal zones fell from 1,041,267 hectares in 1976 to 683,881 in 2007. If present trends continue, Greenpeace Mexico warns, the country will lose an additional 40-50% of its existing mangrove cover by 2025.

The Mexican mangrove story is one that is repeated across the world. A 2001 report from the World Rainforest Movement noted that half the planet's mangroves vanished during the latter part of the 20th century.

Alejandro Olivera, ocean and coastal campaign coordinator for Greenpeace Mexico, says mangroves contain important economic value for fishing and coastal economies. A study done in the Gulf of California by Mexico's National Fisheries Service, Olivera says, reported that each hectare (2.6 acres) of mangroves generates $37,500 in economic value.

For the members of the Barra de Santa Ana Cooperative in the Mexican Pacific state of Michoacan, mangroves sustained the shrimp harvest in the past and could embrace an eco-tourism project in the future. Co-op members plan to build cabins and take tourists on boat excursions to view crocodiles and other wildlife.

"We've created the ecotourism project to satisfy the necessities of our families," says co-op Secretary Hector Madrigal. "We're only lacking the authorization of the appropriate authorities."

Madrigal and friends maintain a mangrove nursery, planting 5,000 new trees last year. A similar mangrove reforestation effort is underway in the Tres Palos Lagoon near Acapulco, with the support of the city government and local fishermen.

Tourist development, the construction of residential subdivisions in urban centers like Acapulco, new ports on the Pacific Coast, Pemex facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, and contamination of estuaries from heavy metals, pesticides, and other chemicals all pose serious threats to Mexico's mangroves.

Despite opposition from tourism developers, a tough new law protecting mangroves was approved by the Mexican Congress in 2007. Two years later, pressures to develop coastal tourism and trade, especially in tough economic times, are encouraging efforts to gut the law. According to Greenpeace's Olivera, two initiatives in the Mexican Congress could elevate development over environmental protection. "We're worried," Olivera acknowledges. Activists are campaigning to make sure the 2007 law stays intact.

The "Climate Change President" and Destruction of the Mangroves

While President Felipe Calderon and members of his administration make speeches about Mexico being a world leader in reducing greenhouse gases and blunting climate change, environmentalists warn that pro-development policies will destroy an essential ecosystem that guards against the effects of climate change as well as climate change itself.

Mangroves could become a tragic casualty of the rush to trade in the country's coasts for dollars. Calderon recently inaugurated the Pacific Coast Planned Integral Center (CIP) in Sinaloa. Located in the middle of an extensive mangrove forest, the new tourism project is envisioned to be twice the size of Cancun and attract 3 million tourists annually according to Miguel Gomez Font, director of Mexico's National Tourism Promotion Fund. Gomez claims the project will grow a city of 500,000 people and create 150,000 jobs.

In a February speech inaugurating the project in Escuinapa, Sinaloa, President Calderon pledged the mega-project will respect the environment. But Gabriel Martinez Campos, president of the Colima-based environmental organization Bios Iguana, criticizes President Calderon for unveiling the CIP without first having a required environmental impact assessment.

"With this decision, the government of Felipe Calderon creates a legal uncertainty and allows investors who want to become established in the country an open door to come in without any administrative or legal pressure," Martinez says. "We are now in a situation where ecocide is an action of the state, and there is going to be impunity in the environmental arena."

Earlier this year, Bios Iguana co-filed a complaint with the Montreal-based North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC) over another project—the massive expansion of the Pacific port of Manzanillo. Manzanillo is a key link in China-North America trade where plans are underway to construct a liquefied natural gas (LGN) re-gasification terminal operated by the Federal Electricity Commission as well as a second LNG facility run by the Ciudad Juarez-based Zeta Gas Company.

The complaint contends the development will jeopardize the Cuyutlan Lagoon, one of the richest mangrove habitats of Mexico's Pacific Coast, as well as jeopardize the safety of nearby residents. Approved by the national environmental ministry, the local municipal development plan facilitates port and terminal construction—all in violation of Mexican environmental law, the complaint alleges.

Conflicts of Interests

CEC Executive Director Adrian Vasquez recused himself from involvement in the Manzanillo complaint. Vasquez's Mexican citizenship as well as his former service as a Mexican government official drove the decision. A chemist by trade who graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso, Dr. Vasquez previously worked in neighboring Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua both as an environmental regulatory official and as a consultant to private industry. Zeta Gas is one of the most ubiquitous and influential firms in northern Mexico. Dr. Vazquez also recused himself from participating in another CEC case filed by Chihuahua activists opposed to the planting of genetically-modified corn.

Both the Manzanillo and Chihuahua cases are currently under review in the CEC.

Set up as the environmental side commission of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the CEC does not have the authority to order changes in the Manzanillo project. After reviewing the complaint, the CEC could decide to investigate and deliver statement of facts to Mexican environmental authorities, who would then have the discretion to alter the project or not.

Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quezada has called preserving mangroves a "priority task for the current administration," but members of IMN-Mexico contend the federal agency lacks the needed resources and political muscle to be effective.

"On the one hand they have humanistic principles and principles of being Mexican nationalists," says Marco Antonio Rodriguez. "On the other hand, they have interests they cannot overcome."

Perhaps an emblematic case in point involves the former chief of environmental office for the state of Guerrero, Leonel Lozano. Lozano was fired from his post last February after running afoul of tourism developers. The showdown erupted after Lozano filed three legal complaints against the planned Bungalows Playa Azul tourist development near Acapulco.

In response, lawyers for the development pursued a formal complaint against Lozano, alleging he trespassed on private property and exceeded his authority as a government official. Subsequently, the internal affairs division of Mexico's federal government determined Lozano should be sacked from his job.

Insisting he was within legal limits, Lozano says he ran across violations during one of his routine inspections of the Guerrero countryside. Lozano maintains Bungalows Playa Azul had encroached upon the prohibited federal zone near the beach, partially filling a lagoon with construction material and erecting buildings in a "high risk" area for natural disasters where a lagoon meets the Pacific Ocean.

According to the Acapulco daily El Sur, the Federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection shut down the Bungalows Play Azul site shortly after Lozano's firing because the development was found to have exceeded its environmental permit.

Lozano's firing hit the national press, got attention in the Mexican Congress, and provoked outrage among Guerrero environmentalists, including members of the IMN-Mexico. Although a 2008 article in an Acapulco magazine promoting Bungalows Playa Azul bore the logo of the Guerrero state government, Governor Zeferino Torreblanca later publicly disassociated his administration from the project.

A full plate on their table, members and supporters of IMN-Mexico from 47 organizations, the Guerrero state government, and Zihuatanejo municipal governments concluded a meeting in the Pacific town last month. More than 100 people heard research presentations, networked with fellow environmentalists, and issued a statement, "The Zihuatanejo Declaration."

Besides redoubling their commitment to protecting mangrove zones, the signers of the declaration opposed the proposed La Parota Dam near Acapulco, expressed solidarity with Mexican environmentalists facing state repression, and called for public clarification of the Lozano firing.

Signatories of the Zihuatanejo Declaration included the Zihuatanejo Network of Environmental Organizations, Oaxaca Coastal Wetlands Network, Greenpeace Mexico, Bios Iguana, Marea Azul, and SOS Bahia, among many others. The statement addressed Latin American and international issues, including a controversial petrochemical project slated for Venezuela's Paraguana Peninsula, which has been proposed as a biosphere reserve in the United Nations.

While expressing solidarity with environmental policies of the Venezuelan government, the Zihuatanejo Declaration conveyed concern about a massive development project intended with support from China and Iran.

The Zihuatanejo event was originally planned as a Latin American gathering but was stymied by Mexican immigration authorities, according to Colima mangrove defender Esperanza Salazar. Although conference planners submitted paperwork months in advance in order to obtain visas for a delegate from El Salvador and one from Colombia, Salazar insists, immigration officials finally refused to issue the necessary travel permits. The conference co-organizer blames current Mexican policies that cast suspicion on certain foreign nationals who might attempt to remain in Mexico or try to cross the border into the United States.

"This is very grave for the people," Salazar says, "because it's part of the struggle, and if we aren't together, we can't struggle together."

For Marco Antonio Rodriguez, preserving mangrove ecosystems is an especially urgent task in a world besieged by twin economic and climate crises. Delving into past history as a guide to the future, Rodriguez reaffirmed the sentiments that first brought pro-mangrove activists from Mexico, Ecuador, and Honduras together back in 1995.

"We determined that the only solution was for the people to come together, to form bonds of sisterhood, and to make demands and engage in forms of struggle that permit (people) to conserve the natural resources which sustain their lives and economies," Rodriguez says.

Kent Paterson is a freelance journalist who covers the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Latin America, and an analyst for the Americas Program at www.americaspolicy.org.

Scaring Zihuatanejo's Tourists?

It has been commented upon more than once (mostly by folks with an axe to grind or a personal agenda or who are trying to sell you something) that I am scaring away tourists from Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa by writing (or in their words "sensationalizing") about things like our crime and pollution problems as well as the recent discussion about the shark incidents. Some rather simple-minded folks actually blame me for the decline in local tourism, as if it were me, not the crime and pollution and other problems, that were causing concern and anxiety among our visitors, both nationals and foreigners. Well, I am certainly not trying to sell anyone anything, that's for sure, since I believe Zihuatanejo sells itself but that it also isn't for everyone. It is unfortunate that there are folks (mostly clueless wonder travel agents looking for their commission and public officials looking to create a favorable impression for their resumé) who attempt to mass market Zihuatanejo as if it were competing for the same tourists that go to Puerto Vallarta, Cancún or Acapulco, while ignoring our very real and growing problems. But the fact is that Zihuatanejo is nothing like those places and its inhabitants do not aspire for it to be so. Acapulco is everything Zihuatanejo doesn't want to be! Tourists who look for the experiences offered by those places would usually be most bored and unhappy in Zihuatanejo as well as make us unhappy here with their raucous and complaining presence. Zihuatanejo is still (though just barely) about enjoying peacefulness, communing with nature in a healthy environment and immersing oneself in the local culture. Unfortunately, the people responsible for ensuring that Zihuatanejo remains peaceful, safe and that its natural attractions as well as our town remain clean and pristine have let us down. It certainly isn't my fault there is crime and pollution, but some people would prefer our visitors came here completely unaware of these things, and if something unfortunate happens to them it should be played down, certainly not discussed in public forums or written up in the press. Well, I don't agree with that propagandistic paint-a-rosy-picture-at-all-costs thinking at all. I think our visitors have a right to make informed decisions based on honest and reliable information, and that it would be MUCH more productive for our community and our visitors if the "responsible authorities" actually attended to our numerous too-long-ignored problems instead of continually trying to cover up and ignore them while seeking votes and public appointments for the next elections.

I wonder how many garbage cans could have been placed on our beaches for the same amount of money our local government wasted to place a religious statue on the bottom of Zihuatanejo Bay and the accompanying trip by the mayor to the Vatican with friends and family to get a miniature version of the statue blessed? I wonder how beautiful our bay and beaches would be if instead of fomenting land invasions to accumulate enough votes to win elections and then spending scarce resources on "popular projects" trying to provide public services to those non-taxpaying land thieves our "responsible authorities" had spent their energies and our meager resources to improve our sewage treatment plants? I wonder how effective our police forces would be if instead of being underpaid, undertrained, under-equipped and often on the payroll of organized crime themselves, they were provided the necessary support to actually keep our streets safe for citizens and visitors? I wonder how attractive Zihuatanejo would be if people who threw garbage in streets and gullies were actually fined for littering, if our garbage trucks didn't leak fetid black ooze on their daily rounds so that our streets didn't smell like sewers, if construction regulations were actually enforced, if ecocide and building violations by developers were actually sanctioned, if city planning were based on ecological sustainability and aesthetics instead of corruption and personal ambitions, if traffic regulations and ecological laws were actually enforced? What a different community and vacation destination this would be!

I believe it's time for the folks who make the most money from our tourism (aka the lodging providers) to step up to the plate and light a fire under our responsible authorities' collective asses to deal with our problems instead of working so fervently to cover them up. It is an election year and now is when they can play an important role in improving the community where they make so much money by speaking out and making their own concerns known publically as well as by putting their money and support behind candidates who will actually attend to our community's problems instead of pandering to populism.

But as long as we have public servants more interested in serving themselves than simply doing the jobs they were elected and appointed to do, then Zihuatanejo will remain a lawless and dirty town with chaotic growth and all its accompanying problems, and nothing I write here will make a hoot of a difference since all our tourists are not deaf, dumb and blind (though a few pretend to be for the sake of argument), and one bad experience by a visitor means not only will they not return but they will also not recommend Zihuatanejo to their friends and family. Such comments by dissatisfied visitors increasingly make the papers every peak vacation season. Though it breaks my heart to read them as well as to be honest about our problems, I find it even more reprehensible that the people with the power and the authority and the resources to correct our problems prefer to cover up these problems instead of acknowledging them and dealing with them. For example, it is simply criminal and unacceptable that there are no warning signs on the beach near the Boquita Canal or Las Salinas Lagoon warning bathers of the potential risk to their health by swimming in the waters near these well-known sources of pollution. It clearly demonstrates that the health and well-being of our visitors is not the primary concern of our municipal authorities. That is unacceptable!

So if tourism is down, perhaps it would be more constructive to blame it on a slumping economy or the increase in prices for everything from transportation to lodging to food (why would anyone raise their prices if tourism is down?, but they do!) or the concern about escalating crime and violence (who wants to vacation in a country whose daily violent death count rivals Iraq's war zone?!) or our deteriorating environment than to blame it on me for acknowledging our problems and providing reliable info about them so that our visitors can make informed decisions about where to seek peace and relaxation in a safe and healthy environment for their vacations. (Whew! That was a mouthful!)

Once again I find myself referring to a most right-on quote by Phil in Toronto: "Garbage cans on the beaches would at least be symbolic!"

Zihuatanejo Beaches In Trouble

According to Semarnat's Reporte de Calidad Bacteriológico del Agua del Mar it sure looks like we have problems at Playa Del Puerto (Playa Principal), Playa La Madera and Playa La Ropa and they would appear to only be getting worse even though the rains stopped well over 2 months ago.

The saddest part of all this is not only that it was preventable, or that it is the result of unscrupulous politicians and incompetent public servants allowing squatters to inhabit our hillsides as well as not administering resources properly to repair and maintain the sewage treatment plants, but that the "responsible authorities" KNOW that these beaches pose a public health risk yet refuse to inform the public. How can they dare show their faces in public knowing their omission of duty is risking the health and even the lives of our visitors? Criminals!

One of the readers of my Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa and Troncones Mexico Message Board asked that "there must be something each of us can do?", to which another reader astutely replied "Well, garbage cans on the beach would at least be symbolic!" I agree. It is simply unforgiveable in this day and age with all the resources our municipal government has at its disposal that there are no garbage cans to be found on any of our beaches. I urge visitors to comment on this to their lodging providers who should be lighting bonfires under the butts of our "responsible authorities" to deal with the problems of trash on our beaches and pollution in the bay.

The "responsible authorities" can imagine good and well what hellish future they are condemning Zihuatanejo to by promoting and tolerating land invasions and not spending public funds honestly and efficiently. But in our modern world of political "partidocrocy" where representative democracy has been twisted into a distorted and sinister parody of what it was intended to be by parties who only exist to perpetuate their own power, an honest, professional and altruistically motivated public servant has become an anachronism, if not a liability. Since no popularly elected public official in Mexico can be re-elected successively to the same office, there is no incentive to be anything other than a party hack, and this condemns our social contract with government to failure since they cease being representative and effective. Here in Mexico we would gladly trade some of our so-called democracy for a stronger, more efficient government, especially one that would actually enforce its laws equally. Currently living in Zihuatanejo is like living in a completely lawless land.

Even La Ropa Beach is suffering. There have been repeated "accidents" this year allowing untreated or inadequately treated wastewater to flow across the beach and into the bay between La Perla Restaurant and Las Urracas Inn as well as the estuary next to Cocodrilos Restaurant, including during the peak of our recent Christmas season. Many of our visitors took the time to file complaints, and according to the local newspaper "Despertar de la Costa" they have over 60 complaints in their possession written by both national and foreign tourists. Below is a recent article of theirs on the subject.

From "Despertar de la Costa", January 4, 2008:

Exigen turistas a autoridades que frenen contaminación de la bahía

*Entre el restaurante La Perla y bungalows Las Urracas se ha estado vertiendo aguas negras

*CAPAZ no ha hecho nada por solucionar el problema *Turistas que han venido a nuestro binomio de playa por más de 20 años señalan que si se sigue descuidando la bahía, dejará de venir el turismo

JUAN FRANCISCO GARCIA.
Turistas nacionales e internacionales coincidieron en sus denuncias por escrito que nunca antes se habían encontrado con un foco de infección como el que ahora hay en playa La Ropa, por lo que urgieron a las autoridades de los tres órdenes de gobierno a "tomar cartas en el asunto, antes de que el turismo deje de venir a nuestro binomio de playa".

En poder de Despertar de la Costa obran más de 60 quejas por escrito de turistas procedentes del interior del país o del extranjero, quienes denuncian que no es posible que nuestro municipio dependa económicamente del turismo y no se cuide a la bahía a la que se le están vertiendo aguas negras, como consecuencia de un deficiente sistema de drenaje.

Varios de estos turistas señalan que tienen más de 20 años visitando nuestro binomio de playa, prefiriéndolo por su tranquilidad, buen trato de la población, excelente cocina y limpieza "pero en esta ocasión vemos con tristeza que lo de la limpieza está por los suelos, porque en playa La Ropa, la más bonita de la bahía, se están vertiendo aguas negras".

TESTIMONIOS
"Estoy muy indignado ya que venimos a Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo desde más de 15 años, pero cada año la limpieza de la playa La Ropa va siendo peor, pero en este año está pésimo porque hay un charco de aguas negras, lo que hace que huela mal toda la playa", señala el turista León Sevilla Cactum, procedente del Distrito Federal.

"Deseando disfrutar de unas vacaciones con nuestros hijos, decidimos venir a este destino de playa, eligiendo La Ropa y el restaurante La Perla, pero nos tocó una de las mesas a un lado del desagüe al aire libre, ocasionando un mal olor y una posible infección a nuestros hijos y a nosotros mismos, por lo que rogamos a las autoridades tomen acción", indica el turista Enrique Robledo, procedente de Querétaro.

REMEMBRANZA DE UNA ASIDUA VISITANTE
La denuncia más emotiva es la de María de Lourdes Ochoa de la Torre, del Distrito Federal, quien manifiesta: "Como visitante de estas playas desde los años 70s he presenciado los cambios normales de un desarrollo turístico. La cantidad de cuartos cerca de la playa, el tipo de servicio en la playa e incluso, la calidad de la carpeta de asfalto, entre otros. Conocí y comí pizza en El Kontiki, bailé en El Chololo que era la discoteca de La Posada Caracol, me divertí en La Tortuga que era un bar de moda sobre la playa La Ropa, esto por hablar de negocios que hace tiempo dejaron de existir físicamente, pero que permanecen en la memoria de muchos.

"De todos los cambios el más sorprendente por escandalizante tiene que ver con la contaminación. Se que entre mi restaurante favorito La Perla y el Hotel Las Urracas pasa un canal de aguas residuales, las cuales corren a cielo abierto y van directamente al mar. Esto afecta en varios niveles y pone en riesgo la salud y bienestar de los visitantes que a cada compra pagamos nuestros impuestos. Además, dudo muchísimo que las personas con restaurantes y hoteles establecidos sean evasores de impuestos; dineros con los que se hace obra pública. Por otro lado, los trabajos y omisiones de las autoridades quedan a la vista y reflejan su ineficiencia e ineficacia, lo cual comprueba que son incompetentes, aunque hay gente que piensa que es corrupción. Claro, una bonita fuente con delfines podría haber esperado a que la planta de tratamiento de aguas residuales quedara lista para cuando aumentara la cantidad de agua a tratar. Cierto que la fuente, el pavimento, la regularización de terrenos corresponde a otras administraciones, por lo que no podemos responsabilizar de esas obras a los actuales funcionarios, pero sí atender los problemas evidentes que hoy saltan a la vista como es el arriba mencionado, porque los visitantes tenemos memoria y nos extraña que con la competencia política entre partidos tan cerrada, los burócratas encargados de dar solución a estas situaciones, ejerzan estrategias dilatorias para atender y arreglar lo que en derecho y por justicia no debiera existir", concluye la turista.

Nightmare in Zihuatanejo Bay

This nightmarish scene could become a reality if Zihuatanejo townspeople allow the federal government to get its way and build a new pier for cruise ships in the middle of Zihuatanejo Bay.

The rendering shows a pier beginning at the end of the actual Muelle Municipal (municipal pier). Although I haven't seen any diagrams showing this configuration, it was discussed with fishermen and with local officials, both of whom relayed this information to members of El Pueblo en Defensa de la Bahía de Zihuatanejo, a civic front of local residents who have made it their mission to make sure the government understands the people of Zihuatanejo will simply not allow this project to be built in Zihuatanejo's bay. The great majority of local townspeople with who have been consulted have expressed their opposition to any new pier in Zihuatanejo Bay, and I am confident it will not be built.

Obviously buses would have to traverse the proposed pier, and I have not included areas for them to turn around. I have simply created a quick rendering from a photo that shows the ships in their correct proportions, and I added a simple pier platform that would more than likely be bigger were it ever actually built. Additionally, if it were built the Mexican navy would have to be moved from the land they now occupy (which has been proposed for a number of years anyway since there is no real need for them to have that location any longer) in order to make room for parking and support services for the pier terminal. A large section of the beach would also have to be paved and many of the fishing boats currently occupying the beach would have to be relocated.

There are simply so many problems with such a concept that not only do the townspeople oppose it for the damage it would do to the marine ecosystem and the eyesore it would represent for everyone around the bay, but the town's infrastructure is woefully inadequate to even contemplate receiving two or possibly even three cruise ships at the same time. We already have received that number of ships at the same time or close together several times in the past and the result is always chaos at the pier and downtown area due to lack of space and facilities for multiple buses, dozens of taxis, and thousands of pedestrians at the same time. Not to mention that when cruise ships are in port many of our paying visitors in lodgings around the area do not come into the downtown area for shopping or dining, and their purchases are generally for much more expensive items than cruise ship passengers, who rarely enter a local restaurant anyway but instead make most of their purchases of inexpensive souvenirs at the artisans market.

Let's hope this nighmarish scene never becomes a reality in Zihuatanejo Bay: a place that has always been appreciated for its natural beauty instead of contrived tourist attractions and cruise ships at anchor. Zihuatanejo has been receiving more and more high-end tourists over the years who prefer simple luxuries of unspoiled beaches, uncluttered views and a peaceful, healthy environment. They would simply go elsewhere if such a monstrosity were built in our bay, and we would have to settle for the "All-Inclusive" hotel crowd and time-share visitors who are generally of a much lower economic scale than the tourists we would lose, meaning we would have to build even more high-density lodgings to bring in more people to make up for the lost high spenders. Sounds to me like a pretty dumb way to go.

Wake Up and Smell the Frangipani

Someone asked recently on my message board about extending the shoreline walkway that currently runs from the downtown beach to Playa La Madera. I'm sure they weren't expecting the reply I gave, but I thought it would be an important point to post here as well.

* * *

More and more each day Zihuatanejo is being made into a caricature of what it really is, all in the name of "tourism".

Part of what Zihuatanejo is all about is nature and exercise. One used to have to be in reasonably good health to visit here since getting around always involved a lot of walking up and down hills and along footpaths. Now that is no longer true, as is painfully obvious, and in the process we are literally paving paradise to put up parking lots... and roads and walkways to new and mostly luxury lodgings owned by foreigners. Has the standard of living benefitted? Well, I can now buy Dr. Pepper at the supermarket, but the supermarket is putting the hundreds of families who depend on the local produce and farmers' markets out of business. And added to that are the thousands of unskilled and uneducated people who move here looking for free land we don't want to give them and job opportunities that they aren't qualified to fill.

The walkway that sort of makes sense is the one to Playa La Madera called El Andador del Pescador, although it was unnecessary, and visitors and residents had no difficulty getting back and forth decades and even centuries before it was built. It is actually a longer walk than if one walks the "old" route from the museum to the footbridge across from La Mordida pizza and burger joint. And many of us used to always simply cross the lagoon mouth at the beach before it was turned into a polluted canal, and walk along either the dirt path or the top of the rocks on the other side, depending which part of La Madera we wished to reach. Everyone used to walk to the Chololo and the Kau-Kan when they were the first discoteques, both on the beach at La Madera. A few sad-looking mangroves on the other side of the canal from the museum are all that remain of the large and scenic estuary that was stupidly obliterated to build new neighborhoods and a shorter road to La Ropa.

When my wife's parents first visited La Ropa's beach they used to have to get there by canoe from their house on the beach next to the present-day basketball court on the Playa Principal. Eventually the Catalina Hotel built the road out to their location at La Ropa, and later it was extended around behind much of what is left(!) of the coconut grove at La Ropa to reach the Capricho del Rey at the far end of La Ropa Beach. Later that route was shortened by going straight through the coconut grove, which is now being cut down for new luxury homes... mostly owned by foreigners. As soon as that road was paved La Ropa saw endless vehicles speeding through the coconut grove bringing noise, dust and a lot of their garbage to what was once a serene and pristine masterpiece of nature and local social culture.

Along the cliffsides surrounding the bay we used to have thousands of fragrant frangipani trees. With the building of the walkway from downtown to La Madera most of those along that portion have disappeared, some from the construction, some from vandalism and careless people. Similarly, at Puerto Mio most of the frangipani is gone due to rapacious development for... you guessed it... more luxury homes that are now extending out past Playa Contramar to the northwestern coast of the bay.

In the above photo a frangipani clings to the cliff beside the ruins of what was the popular Chololo disco at La Madera Beach. The damaged walkway seen in the photo has been rebuilt "bigger and better".

At La Ropa Beach we already had one incident a couple of years ago where La Casa Que Canta blasted the rocks of the natural pool called El Pozo del Eslabón to try to keep locals from hanging out at the beginning part of the beach where it has been suggested the walkway should be extended to. Needless to say there was a large local outcry after a local child cut his feet on the sharp rocks Casa Que Canta left in the natural pool and cemented along the rocks there. I guess from a foreigner's point of view it might be desireable to build a walkway since it would inevitably lead to more luxury homes owned by foreigners, but from a Mexican's point of view it seems tragic to lose any more than what's already been lost. Part of the attraction of La Ropa is (or was) its relative isolation from the hustle and bustle of downtown, and Las Gatas is in an even more vulnerable position to lose its culture and identity if a walkway or road were ever built to reach there.

So please, enjoy the walk over hill and dale, be healthy, enjoy the scent of the frangipani when it blooms, and love Zihuatanejo for what it is. =)

The Big Bad Change

Cerro del Vigía proceeds at full blast with the destruction of what the native Zihuatanejo community still considers its ecological zone. It appears that any legal impediments (and I use the term "legal" very loosely since this is arguably the biggest land theft scam and act of corruption by public officials across the political spectrum in the history of Zihuatanejo) were overcome for the time being since heavy equipment can be seen operating there daily. I believe this was one of the stupidest developments ever permitted here and certainly the most treasonous act ever perpetrated by local public officials, obviously with help and proper persuasion from higher-ups and other "influentials".

The Monte Cristo development between Puerto Mío and Playa La Majahua is obviously hot on the propaganda trail, trying to appeal to the pseudo-ecologists with flowery images and sounds and feel-good concepts. One has only to take a look at blasted out fragile hills surrounding Playa Contramar and their view-blocking stone wall they have built along the Carretera Escénica La Majahua to know that preserving ecology is the farthest thing from their minds and has nothing to do with what is happening there.

And now a new concern is the quiet plan to develop Las Salinas lagoon, a lagoon we would rather save and preserve as the last natural area adjacent to downtown, a place where mangroves and birds and green spaces should be protected for future generations. But first we have to fix the pollution problem.

And we aren't ever going to be able to get a handle on the pollution problem unless we have a moratorium on new construction and rationally regulate land use in favor of restoring the health of the bay and the ecosystem of the surrounding hillsides. Otherwise the bay will become a sludgepot in a few years and the denuded hillsides will be so ugly that no one will want to come here anyway.

These may be the final few years that many of our regular visitors will still wish to vacation here. Already too many of our former repeat vacationers have stopped coming here altogether. But it appears that they must not be the most desirable market, since we continue doing everything to drive them away in favor of the investors in megaprojects.

Though local officials have certainly been complicit in worsening the situation, there is also pressure from state and federal officials who have their own special interests to look after. The revival of the development at Playa La Majahua came on the heels of the release of former Presidente Salinas' brother, Raúl, from prison. He was allegedly one of the original investors. The road at La Majahua is the only place I have ever seen a black jaguar (often mistakenly called a black panther) in the wild. Unfortunately with the development there and the lack of corriders for wildlife allowing them to cross beneath the coastal highway I doubt anyone will ever see one there again.

But don't it always go to show that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...

(Photo courtesy of Roberto! Robertson)