In the last 20 years, the beaches of La Paz, Baja California Sur, have acquired a tourist value and, as a result, disputes have increased between different users for the exclusive use of these spaces, according to Carmina Valiente, research professor at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur and coordinator of the campaign Es Mi Playa, Mi Barrio.
“Whoever has political, economic and property power controls access to the beach or the sea. It's very easy to exclude others when you have property and, above all, properties as large as those we have in Baja California Sur, unlike other parts of the country,” he explained.
Over the past 10 years, the City Council of La Paz has received more than 10 complaints of blockages on roads leading to the sea and has undertaken inter-institutional operations to release them, which has highlighted the limitations and legal loopholes that exist to guarantee free access to beaches.
“The interest or initiative to create this regulation stems from the intervention on site that the City Council of La Paz had and the limited regulations in force, which are very few. This regulation adds another tool for the defense of beaches, but also for their conservation and care,” said Pavel Castro, comptroller of the City Council of La Paz.
As a result of this experience and collaboration with civil society organizations, the City Council of La Paz has a proposal for a regulation on access to beaches that, if approved by the Cabildo de La Paz, would avoid conflicts over free access and responsible use of beaches during Holy Week and the summer season of 2026.
“It's time for this regulation to come out if we want to avoid conflicts and unnecessary energy loss during Easter and summer. When the rules of the game are clear, we avoid friction,” said Valiente.
Free access to the beaches
The regulations were drawn up through working groups for about three months, between the City Council of La Paz, the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda), Cómo Vamos La Paz and Es Mi Playa, Mi Barrio. Its main objective is to guarantee, protect and regulate the right to access, to transit and to the free, safe, free, adequate, inclusive and continuous enjoyment of the beaches of La Paz.
“It seeks to guarantee the human right and the universal right to beaches and to avoid exclusion,” said Valiente.
The regulation only includes municipal powers related to the protection of access to beaches and the Zofemat, as well as building permits, security, cleaning and the collection of concessions.
“We know that we have to be careful not to scale up the powers we have too much. Within these powers, it is public roads that we can intervene, and in the Zofemat agreements, in the conservation and care of beaches, as well as in the collection of the federal zone,” Castro said.
Two of the guidelines that give life to this regulation are the creation of an inventory of accesses and beaches and the non-authorization of land subdivisions that do not have registered roads or an easement of passage established previously before the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat).
“The city council can release access, but then it turns out that they were not registered in the Cadastre and the owners demand that it is their private property,” said Valiente.
Now, with the inventory of accesses and beaches registered with the Cadastre, when someone is going to build or purchase a beachfront property, they will already know that there is access to the beach that passes through that property.
According to Castro, this regulation also seeks to anticipate the path that municipalities must follow if the Senate approves a reform to the General Law on National Assets and the General Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection, already approved by the Chamber of Deputies, which prohibits the imposition of charges to access beaches and proposes a National Access Registry.
“This reform proposes a national register of access to beaches and establishes that land registers must register these accesses,” Castro said.
Responsible use of common property
Another important axis of the regulation has to do with the responsibility and care obligations attributed to citizens.
“There are certain citizen responsibilities such as taking their garbage, not taking the car to the beach and respecting the presence of other people. That's important because not only can we be demanding; we also have to do our part so that we're all doing well in that space, as in any public space. We have to self-regulate for the common good,” said Valiente.
He added that there is an opportunity to learn to collectively care for common goods that, such as beaches, belong to all people.
“The common goods are practiced and we, as citizens, have to take responsibility for being self-managing and caring for that common good, educating each other, with signage and communication campaigns. The city council should not be alone in that; that is also what civil society organizations are there for,” said Valiente.
Approval, Implementation, and Replicability
The proposed regulation is in the process of being decided by the Committee on Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, and is expected to be voted on by the Council of La Paz before Easter in 2026.
If approved, new challenges will come, such as its implementation to ensure compliance with what is established by the regulation.
“We are proposing that the City Council, through the corresponding areas, carry out periodic and extraordinary inspections to verify compliance with this regulation in all accesses to beaches and in federal areas,” Castro said.
They will also rely on municipal public security elements and on the routes and checks already carried out by Zofemat La Paz. Due to municipal powers, they may also involve areas such as Integral City Management in mobility issues or construction licenses, or the Treasury in matters related to commerce.
“We are simply going to create a more organized structure, but the budget is not going to stop us, because the management already has staff and we can distribute the work without problem,” Castro said.
Once this regulation is in place, both Valiente and Castro agree that it will be a good opportunity to replicate it.
“We haven't always been tourist states; there is a culture and a history that have preceded tourism, but that are displaced. The narrative of tourism, beauty and landscape prevails over the narrative of the origin of these places. That's why we have to amplify the history of the place, learn to live together and avoid future conflicts in other municipalities in Baja California Sur and in all tourist destinations in Mexico,” said Valiente.
Comentarios (0)