In November 2023, the City Council of La Paz and the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) reported respectively to Profepa the clearing and removal of dunes and vegetation in the El Mogote desert barrier, located in La Paz, Baja California. The damage was recognized by the authorities and investigations are being carried out to determine responsibility.
“When studies were carried out on dunes that were requested for the POEL (Local Ecological Management Program), walking tours were made throughout that area and they told us, 'waters, because here there are signs, you can see some machines, you can see all the intention' and there this irregularity was detected, so we sent the complaint to Profepa,” said Jeanneth Armendáriz, director of Ecology and Environment of the City Council of La Paz.
At the same time, they associated these events with the Lumai Peninsula project, which is in the process of obtaining environmental authorization from the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) to operate tourist accommodation with recreational spaces and facilities for events at the same coordinates as the complaint.
The project aims to build 65 bungalows and 83 cabins for glamping, event rooms, facilities for yoga, meditation, spa, parking, walkers, green areas and protection areas on an area of 101 thousand 823 square meters (m2) within the 311 thousand 155 m2 property that constitutes the property of the developer, according to the Environmental Impact Manifestation (MIA) that entered Semarnat in February 2024.
It also states that drinking water installations will be pumped from underground tanks that cover an area of 150 m2, of which one will be used to store 100,000 liters of water supplied by pipes and 50,000 liters to store rainwater. As well as the installation of solar panels, electricity generation plants and plants for wastewater treatment.
The MIA was promoted by José Galicot Behar, a businessman and philanthropist from Chihuahua, founder of the Tijuana Innovative initiative and related to at least 13 companies, mostly in Tijuana and one in La Paz, with various branches ranging from the real estate sector, to cash machines, private security, management of hydroelectric plants and telecommunications.
Ignacio Guillermo Ibarra González is also involved in the project, who is Group Chief Executive Officer in Lumai Peninsula, as announced on his public LinkedIn profile and, according to his social networks, he works on ChiloChill, a glamping tourism project that is based in La Ventana, Baja California Sur.
For this report, Causa Natura Media searched for José Galicot through the channels offered by his project, but there was no response. While contacting through the official channels offered by Lumai on its website, Guillermo Ibarra de Lumai replied that there was nothing they wanted to comment on for the report.
Machinery doing dune removal and compaction work in El Mogote on the site that Lumai intends to install. Source: Cemda.
Cemda has identified that it is increasingly common for projects to begin their works before the processes to determine if they have environmental authorization are completed, which is illegal.
“Either they are very sure that they are going to obtain the authorization or I don't know what goes through their heads when they start preparing the land, doing clearing, and in this case they are going to remove dunes as well, and that is an illegality because they have to comply with the entire process and obtain the corresponding authorizations before they can start with the works,” said Saraí Gómez, coordinator of the research area for the northwestern office of Cemda.
This is the case of the Lumai project that Cemda focused on, but Gómez warns that during those verification visits they realized that also on the side road from Estero Zacatecas to the Paraíso del Sol project there are several areas with sand removal and signs of land with dunes for sale.
There are currently no restrictions on selling land with dunes. Although these should be used for conservation, they end up being offered for construction, as in the case of the Lumai project.
Real estate speculation
Land with dunes for sale in El Mogote, Baja California Sur. Source: Cemda.
“A serene luxury retreat for tasteful travelers that evokes inspiring ways to connect with their inner self,” the Lumai Peninsula website says in English.
The project has been published on their Facebook page since August 2023, it was announced that it will open in spring 2024 and even Lumai is registered on Google Maps showing images of the project.
On December 12, they published photographs of the project on their social networks and since December 14, they have not republished.
“They are going to open now in spring and they have their map, the concept of the project and they are already announcing it on different networks. It seems that the series of authorizations they must have to start promoting your project is not well established because they began (Lumai Peninsula) to be announced without even having entered an environmental impact assessment, so they do not have the change in land use. And this is important because it generates speculation,” said Saraí Gómez.
The promotion of these projects makes these areas more visible and investors are interested in space, when in theory they could only acquire land for conservation.
“If I am seeing that a project is already starting, it is also being advertised on networks and I see that it is a potential place because you have paradise by the sea that is at the end... and that added to the fact that there are sales of those lots because then you focus on this type of place and someone who doesn't know and who has the capital and who is just seeing where to invest their money, of course he will start to see how to get a piece of the cake”, Gómez.
In Mexico, it is not so clear who is responsible for regulating the advertising of tourism and real estate projects that are not guaranteed their viability and for this reason it could be considered misleading, according to Saraí Gómez, this is punishable in countries such as the United States because “the assets and investment of people who want to buy in that place are at stake”.
Environmental impact of the project
The project is in the environmental assessment process in which Semarnat will determine if the mitigation measures incorporated in the MIA will guarantee that there will be no environmental impact.
For this process, the City Council of La Paz was asked for a technical opinion on the project in which it determined that it contravenes the provisions of the PDU (Urban Development Program) of La Paz, and it has already been sent to Semarnat, which in turn will evaluate the opinion and determine whether or not the project is authorized.
“Semarnat asks City Councils for technical opinion regarding municipal powers, which basically have to do with authorizing the use of municipal land. Then, an opinion will be made based on what the PDU-CP La Paz considers. But it is Semarnat who has the power to decide if the project is viable in terms of environmental impact and to consider whether this opinion will be relevant in the final decision, since these opinions are not binding, in accordance with the Ecological Balance Act,” Armendariz said.
The Lumai project is located in the Mogote dunes area in the UGA-06 of the PDU of La Paz (2018) to which a special protection policy applies because it is a mangrove area. However, this is not mentioned in the MIA and is not linked to NOM-022-SEMARNAT-2003, which establishes measures in favor of coastal wetlands in mangrove areas.
“A large part of the project is in ecologically important and sensitive areas. Practically, they have all the proposed expansion on the dunes. They also have works on top of temporary lagoons that flood with the tide, however, they plan to put their meditation centers there. Practically, the macrolot of the project also covers the Zacatecas wetland that is there and which is composed of a mangrove area and these temporary lagoons,” Saraí Gómez explained.
The MIA points out that if the project were carried out, it would generate 134 possible interactions with the environment, of which 94 (70%) were harmful mainly to the air, soil, landscape and water and 40 were beneficial (30%), through actions to benefit the environment and the generation of economic income.
And he concludes that the viability of the project is positive since no critical adverse impacts were identified, because “the project will not cause serious ecological imbalances, nor damage to ecosystems or people, and is therefore considered environmentally viable”.
In this evaluation process by Semarnat, if citizens request it, a public consultation can be opened. Cemda encourages citizens to request it and provide their comments on the project so that they can be taken into account in the final resolution.
“We see it as an opportunity to support the evaluation process and point out situations that the authority may not have so clearly seen. Once the authority notifies the opening of the public consultation, there are 20 business days for any interested person to comment on the project. And already at the end of the process, the authority decides, based on all the analysis it made of the comments it received and the relevant evaluation, it determines whether to authorize the project, authorize it conditionally or deny it,” said Gómez.
From his point of view, the project has incurred the three reasons for which it must be denied: preparing the land without authorizations is violating the regulations; affecting species within the NOM-059 and omitting information in its MIA regarding the protection of the area in which it is intended to be installed.
“If there was dune compaction, if they removed, if they compacted, if they removed vegetation associated with the dune system, it is clear that there is a modification; the Zacatecas estuary is part of a ramsar site and the mangroves of Mogote are also part of a ramsar site. In addition, there are species that have been reported to be also included in NOM-059 and that would therefore also be affected by a project of this type,” he explained.
Therefore, it is incongruous that a project that presents itself as sustainable, fails to carry out works without authorizations, “speaks of an inconsistency in terms of the term sustainability,” Gómez said.
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