The projects for the entry of mega-cruises to La Paz Bay, Baja California Sur, and to the Island of Cozumel, Quintana Roo, have led to a series of demonstrations and legal remedies against damage to the environment.
In the case of La Paz, at the end of 2020, the arrival of Oasis-type cruises was registered for the first time, as those with a capacity of more than 5 thousand people are known. They came without tourists, they paused due to inactivity, but their presence generated concern among residents that was overshadowed by news about a second wave of infections of Covid-19 in Mexico.
By April 2021, 11 mega-cruise ships had anchored in the Bay. At the same time, the dissemination of neighborhood reports of fuel spills from ships began, whose design requires that the engines be always running.
“When they were installed it was shocking because it wasn't something we were used to. To have these gigantic machines in front of us, which are watering pollutants into the water, that are emitting gases...”, described Alekz Águila, spokesman for the Torpedo collective, part of the Movement for the Defense of the Territory of Baja California Sur formed that same year.
After the cruise ships arrived in La Paz, it was announced that the corporate ITM Group and Carnival won a tender to undertake a project to expand the Pichilingue port, in La Paz, with the objective of building two berths for Oasis ships.
The tender was awarded by the Integral Port Administration of Baja California Sur (APIBCS). This is a 25-year concession, which can be extended up to 15 more. According to US media, the start of works is planned for 2023.
It states that the expansion will consist of “demolition, dismantling and relocation, as well as the remodeling of the infrastructure that is currently in operation. The relocation involves filling 8,623 square meters.”
“It's not an extension, it's much more than that. They want to install two piers that will need land earned from the sea, so the sediments will have to be dredged and dangerous and toxic substances could be released... There is even talk of dolphinariums, restaurants, green areas, new offices...”, Águila explained.
Specialists and researchers, some from the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (UABCS) who also belong to the Defense Movement, analyzed the MIA and found that it is omitted in details of information.
One of the main concerns is the Balandra Protected Natural Area, enacted in 2012, and located just 30 minutes from La Paz. This wetland area is an internationally recognized Ramsar Site and a refuge for threatened species such as the golden eagle, the Mexican falcon and the rattlesnake.
“We made an overlay of the official map included in the MIA with the project in the conceptual image of what they advertise on the internet, and you realize that they are starting on one side, but that they will continue to expand to others,” Águila added.
The largest cruise ship in the world, the “Wonder of the Seas”, from the shipping company Royal Caribbean International, arrived on March 14 on Cozumel Island. Photo: Special /Dark Room
Cozumel, a place of giants against corals
Unlike other tourist destinations, Cozumel, in the state of Quintana Roo, is the island of cruises. Since the 90s, different governments have focused on mass tourism that today is sustained at the docks of Puerta Maya, SSA Mexico and Puerto Langostosa.
The state API schedule indicates that 81 of these ships are forecast to arrive by March 2022 alone.
However, the coronavirus pandemic changed the history of cruise ships in Cozumel, according to Miriam Moreno, a social psychologist dedicated to conservation projects and participation in the port.
“During the pandemic, cruise ships did not receive a single peso of income. The tourism that began to lift the island's economy was not cruise tourism; it was diving, snorkeling, nature in general,” said Moreno.
“The relationship that was thought to be super dependent with cruise ships, almost like without cruise ships there was no island, now that we saw it possible, generated a different reading for that industry.”
And the change was such that different organizations, specialists and neighbors have organized themselves against the construction of a fourth pier, which had already been promoted since 2018 by the then municipal president Pedro Joaquín Delbouis.
Its planning indicates that it will be installed in the northwestern area of Cozumel, with an investment of more than 510 million pesos, by the company Muelles del Caribe.
As in La Paz, environmental and neighborhood groups that oppose the work evaluated that the MIA presented to Semarnat did not include relevant information about the state of environmental conservation, such as the presence of corals.
“It is very serious that the managers of Semarnat did not do the work of going to verify that there were species on the site, as the MIA said... The corals in that part of the island are not perceived as completely connected as in other places, but they are there in that perimeter, fulfilling their ecosystem functions, allowing us to breathe better, being a barrier to natural disasters, a refuge for species...”, said Moreno.
One of the first interventions that were carried out to stop the approval of the fourth pier, he recalled, were the photographic brigades with the purpose of preparing a community log that would compile the species that exist in the area, including those that were not contemplated.
In 2021, technical opinion was requested from the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas (Conanp), which supported that “the MIA indicates only a few isolated individuals of coral in the area where the transects were made, and does not consider the Villa Clanca Reef and the colonies of acropora palmata and acropora cervicornis, located in the dock area.”
This year, the Cozumel Island Citizens Collective obtained, through an amparo before the Federal Judiciary, the suspension of the work by the Third District Court in Cacún. Judge Pamela López Swain considered that the promoters legitimately represented the interests of the inhabitants of Cozumel for the right to a healthy environment. However, it does not represent a definitive suspension.
Development of the Community Blog to detect species. Photo: Cozumel Ocean Research
A myth called economic spill
In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the economic impact left by cruise passengers who arrived in Mexico was 626 million dollars, an average of 68 dollars per cruise ship, according to the study “Cruises in Mexico. An overview of an activity with light and dark”, prepared by Antonio Barragán Ojeda, an academic at the National School of Higher Studies (ENES) Unidad Mérida, belonging to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
“However, the figure is less than the average $500 for a conventional tourist who comes by plane or who crosses by land,” explained the specialist in an interview with Journalism Causa Natura.
“The cruise ship has the peculiarity that it is not a means of transport, but the destination itself. As a destination, most cruise passengers don't have an incentive to generate a bigger spill than they already did. They almost always buy their all-inclusive package and they don't find sense in spending something they already have, such as lodging, food... so the impact on the trade balance in Mexico is minimal,” he added.
Miriam Moreno adds that the tourism that Cozumel promoted after the restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic was not that of cruises, “it was that of tourists who go to Cozumel (by other means), who do stay to consume; who are interested in getting to know the place and to learn about the culture; who are going to have dinner, breakfast, eat; who do leave a considerable economic spill”.
Added to this, according to the study, is that the cruise market is concentrated in oligopolies that bring together almost 80% of the companies offering the service.
Miriam Moreno and Alekz Águila insist on evidence that low salaries for cruise ship workers; unfair competition with local activities; real estate and business development for the area; problems of selling drugs to cruise passengers; as well as deforestation for buildings and deficiencies in the drainage system, are part of the problems that come with this type of tourism.
“One of the things that needs to be demystified is that people talk about cruise ships as if they were the global economic panacea and they are not. It's not what they tell us, it's a mirage because there's nothing more neoliberal and capitalist than the mass model for tourism,” said Aleks Águila.
#SobornemosSemarnat
After the multiple actions from La Paz and Cozumel, on March 2, the fronts of both entities came together to launch the #SobornemosSemarnat campaign, through a demonstration outside the Semarnat facilities in Mexico City.
“This campaign is a satire with every intention of positioning the issue at the national level. The logic of this is that we know that Semarnat has been working on bribes for many years... And we believe that if there is capital that is surely supporting the issue of approving the MIA to destroy the environment, we could balance the balance,” explained the spokesman for Colectivo Torpedo.
During the demonstration, José Luis Bravo Soto, Deputy General Director of Citizen Participation and Citizen Care at Semarnat, came out to indicate the steps to follow, which consist of scheduling an appointment to discuss the campaign issue.
The objective is to achieve the suspension of both projects to expand the Pichilingue port and the construction of the fourth pier in Cozumel. A type of tourism that, they agree, has no sustainable routes.
“I think it's quite proven: cruise tourism is the most polluting on the planet. If we are in a climate crisis like this, I don't think it can be very compatible. If you're talking about the most polluting industry versus the most fragile ecosystems, which one are you going to pay attention to, which one are we going to defend. Rather, we have to stop where we are and regulate what is already there,” said Moreno.
Comentarios (0)