(25-08-10) A Spanish company plans to build a tourist complex in Mexico, in an area declared a World Heritage Site. The project has been approved by the government through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

    The organizations Greenpeace, Wildcoast, the Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (CEMDA) and Amigos para la Conservación de Cabo Pulmo A.C (ACCP), have presented in Mexico City the report Cabo Cortés: destruyendo el paraíso (“Cape Cortez: destroying the paradise”). It shows how Hansa Urbana, controversial Spanish company, plans to build an enormous resort in the protected area of Cape Pulmo. The organizations request to not carry out this project, which threatens an ecosystem considered Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO.

    In 2008 Hansa Urbana got the authorization from the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources of Mexico (SEMARNAT) to begin to build in Cape Cortez in Los Cabos (Baja California Sur). Projected on an area of over 3,800 hectares, it would have a marina of 490 berths, two golf courses, capacity of 30,000 rooms and 5,000 housings for workers, it is, almost equal capacity as Cancun.

    This development is adjacent to Cape Pulmo, a National Marine Park that is part of the list of Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO, and which in 2008 was included in the RAMSAR Convention for the protection of wetlands of international importance. After two years of fight, and having filled legal appeals to CEMDA and Defensa Ambiental del Noroeste (DAN), the SERMANAT recently decided that they should not authorize the project.

    The environmental organizations say that the fact that it was approved initially and that now it is being amended due to irregularities demonstrates the lack of rigor when approving projects that threaten the environment. "It is amazing that a project like Cape Cortez is approved just with one process, and that two years later the authorisation is decided to be modified, only by the pressure of society and legal resources. How many similar projects exist with authorizations involving damage to ecosystems? We don’t want the authorization of Cape Cortez is modified, we want it to be cancelled because there are arguments that go beyond legal resources that threaten Cape Pulmo,"  explained Alejandro Olivera, spokesman for Greenpeace Mexico.

NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTS

    It should be noted that the National Commission on Protected Areas (CONANP) issued in July 2009 a negative opinion about the environmental impact report submitted by Hansa, and about the potential impact of the project. There is also a technical opinion of the Dirección General de Política Ambiental e Integración Regional y Sectorial of the Semarnat, which has pointed out the legal infeasibility of the project as it contravenes both the Plan de Ordenamiento Ecológico of Los Cabos and sector programs and legislation. In spite of this, the Semarnat decided to authorize it in 2008.

    “Cape Cortez can have a totally destructive impact on the coral reef and the entire ecosystem. The report about its environmental impact has many deficiencies that have not been corrected; it is based on false or wrong information; it doesn’t analyze some of the most serious potential impacts in depth; and it doesn’t take into account the social problems that the massive arrival of workers can generate in a low populated region and the lack of services”, has denounced Fay Crevoshay, spokesman for Wildcoast.

    The company developer of Cape Cortez, the construction company Hansa Urbana accumulates some investigations in Spain for irregularities in the approval process of their project Novo Carthago (Cartagena, Murcia), especially regarding the processing planning and the process of reclassification of the land. The prosecutor’s office of Murcia has investigated it after having known that the golf course is going to be built in a protected area by the European Union as a Special Protection Area for Birds (SPA) and Site of Community Importance (SCI).

    On the other hand, in May 2010 Rafael Galea, director general of Hansa Urbana, was called by a judge to testify as a defendant since there are “reasonable evidence” of participation in crimes against the Treasury and falsification of documents. The amount of the crimes is over 6 million Euros.

SPANISH COMPANIES EXPORT THEIR DISASTERS TO MEXICO

    Also, it is considered unacceptable that the Spanish property and tourist companies, key in the unsustainable development carried out in Spain in the last years and now exhausted, intent to reproduce in other countries the disaster they have caused here.

    “Their business model in the short term doesn’t take into consideration the dangerous social, environmental and labour impacts of their projects and compromises the welfare of future generations in exchange for quick profits for very few. The project Cape Cortez can have an especially harmful impact by affecting a unique ecosystem, national and internationally protected and cared by the population of the area. Thus it has never to be built,” has explained Mabel Bustelo of Greenpeace Spain in Mexico.

    The organizations request that Cape Cortes is not authorized and propose the intense promotion of the protection efforts of Cape Pulmo by the local community, who has used a tourist model respectful to the environment.

    “We have lived on ecotourism and the protection of the marine protected area of Cape Pulmo. Cape Cortez Project threatens our livelihood. We haven’t been asked despite the fact that we are in the area of influence. It is not fair that 4.5 million cubic metres per year are granted in a desert area when we need it, and that salt water that can end in the reef are discharged” said Mario Castro, inhabitant of the community of Cape Pulmo and founder vice-president of ACCP.

IMPACTS OF CAPE CORTEZ PROJECT

    - The desalination plant will discharge 500 litres per second of salt water that can end in the reef of Cape Pulmo.

    - It is against the law that states that any new tourism project has to ensure own water supply and the one of the population centres generated as a result. However, this project, if fully developed, will consume the equivalent water to a city of 71,000 inhabitants (4.5 million cubic meters).

    - Possible impacts of climate change and forecasts about a change in sea level in the Pacific are not taken into accounto.

    - It will change the coast profile and will affect the life in the sandy bottoms and the sand placing. When it is working there will be an important traffic, which is likely to cause dumping of fuels, wastes and noises that will affect the area and beyond.

    - The authorisation is against the recommended by the Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), since Cape Pulmo is undoubtedly in the area of influence of the project.

    - The study presents problems of identification and lack of appropriate and sufficient sampling regarding birds, mammals and reptiles, some of them endangered species.

 

Text: Guadalupe Romero / Greenpeace