Save Eco Destinations

Xcacel-Xcacelito sanctuary map

If you’ve been keeping up on Xcacel-Xcacelito through the blog or elsewhere, you know that Grupo Posadas has been intent on building a resort on one of the most important turtle nesting sites in the world. These creatures are the loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green (Chelonian mydas) sea turtles.

Due to shady business between the federal and state governments and third parties, Xcacel-Xcacelito went from being a protected site to a patch of land up for grabs to the highest freakin’ bidder.

Even though this area used to be protected, as it belonged to a region declared protected back in 1998, it is no longer under jurisdiction of the state government. Being now in the federal government’s control, it was commercialized.

Grupo Posadas took advantage of the perilous situation the sanctuary found itself in and recently purchased the area free of legal repercussions regarding nature conservation and so on.

Take action

What we can do is email people in power in the Mexican Government, tell them how wrong we think this is, and do our best to influence them to turn things around. To take this land out of corporate hands and back into nature and the people’s.

I’ve found information on who to email; these are people influential in making decisions regarding whether to keep Xcacel-Xcacelito as an unviolated nesting site or turn it into a corporate wasteland.

The Mangrove Action Project has a sample letter you can email Mexican President Calderón and other folk in the Mexican Government.

Please send them an email.

With so many tourists making the idyllic beaches of Quintana Roo-Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, etc. their destinations, they are taking a toll on the local endangered sea turtles.

As well, it’s become fashionable to celebrate weddings and honeymoons on these coasts. (Hey, I don’t blame these people – those coasts are gorgeous!)

In packed places like Cancun and Playa del Carmen, beaches are swamped with hotels, condos, restaurants, and other tourist attractions that exude bright lights and noise pollution. Severe beach erosions have also damaged or destroyed many of the turtles’ nesting sites.

Some biologists have shown laudable dedication and worked to coax some establishments into adopting certain turtle-friendly measures (ok, less turtle-hostile measures). These include putting out or redirecting their lights, withdrawing camastros, chairs and other portable furniture, and advising guests and employees to stay away from the turtles altogether. These measures are crucial, as anything that hinders turtles’ reproductive activities further endangers these animals.

Fortunately, these serene turtles can still count on Tulum and nearby beaches for respite. Since this part of the coast is less ridden with resorts and other buildings, the area provides turtles with a more tranquil habitat.

It is still necessary, however, for turtles to have pristine and peaceful havens if they are to reproduce at normal rates (which are already low!). For this purpose, there do exist certain restricted areas, although they do remain largely unsupervised.

How coastal weddings harm turtles

Habitually, weddings and their corresponding celebrations take place at night – turning normally dark, deserted, and quiet beaches into bright, loud, and chaotic spaces. These wedding practices screw with turtles’ spawning rituals, causing the animals to return to sea without taking care of their reproductive business.

Baby turtles at night

Exacerbating this is the fact that both turtle spawning season and low tourist season (during which flight and hotel reservation costs drop, which draws tourists in) coincide. Both seasons begin in April-May.

As you’ve probably already guessed, no legal restrictions exist in Mexico to protect sea turtles from such situations. Celebrations may legally take place any time of the year on any beach at any time. Sweet, huh? Not for the turtles!

At one point, Tulum was under the influence of rules that protected turtles during spawning season. But now they are obsolete. Many greedy hotel owners choose to invite their guests to do whatever the hell they please as long as they pony up the money, instead of respecting Mother Nature.

At the same time, there are some conscientious hotel owners make efforts to protect local ecosystems and thus prohibit noisy and bright events that would take place after dark. This is another reason to stay at an eco-hotel wherever and whenever you travel.  (Please check the “Lodging” category for posts with links to some eco-hotels around the world and peruse our blogroll, directories, and organizations lists on the right-hand column.)

Sea turtle populations on the Mexican Caribbean have already declined drastically from their original numbers. We owe it to our planet to play eco-nice.

You can read more on the issue here, and about the Xcacel-Xcacelito red alert here, here, here, and here.

Map of where the plant will be, in Nayachar island (photo by New Scientist)

If you thought all the news about Xcacel-Xcacelito’s protected mangroves being torn down to make room for the Grupo Posadas’s swank and greedy hotel development are depressing, wait until you read what’s going on in West Bengal.

Exactly one month ago, the state government of West Bengal and an Indian government committee met to approve plans for the building of a petrochemicals plant on the Nayachar island. This plant will-unless somebody kidnaps everyone involved and makes them read Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Jane Goodall, and many other theorists until they turn into Earth-loving vegans-refine crude oil and make petroleum by-products. Within weeks.

Somebody make the remaining endangered royal Bengal tigers some martinis before they wig out, stat!

Indian environmental groups, by the way, need some stiff drinks too. Nayachar island is only 10 km. from the Sunderbans, a UNESCO World Heritage site and biodiversity hotspot (see photo above).

The New Scientist quoted Santanu Chacraverti of the Society for Direct Initiative for Social and Health Action, a Kolkata-based NGO: “Setting up a petrochemical cluster in that region is tantamount to ecocide. … Noxious effluents will flow into the coastal waters and spread into the vast network of rivers and creeks. Sunderban, the nursery of a range of marine, coastal, and estuarine lifeforms, will be subjected to pollution.”

This might prove the sequel to the Narmada River incident in the late ’90s, when India built over 3000 dams across the river and destroyed both its ecosystem and the habitat of hundreds of thousands of humans (as well as, of course, millions of animals).

Honestly, I feel like tossing bricks at these idiots’ heads. I mean, SERIOUSLY? Where are their brains and why aren’t they functioning? These people need to be sterilized and used in scientific experiments to help the rest of the world survive the ecological disasters taking place and those just starting to brew. Really. I really don’t get it. I do not get it. How can these idiots spend their murderous money if they help speed up their planet’s death? Somebody shoot some sense into their heads, please…

Although I was unable to find any petitions to sign or information for letters to write and where to send them, I did find an article arguing that the building of this petrochemicals plant in Nayachar will not cause problems. It’s in the Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) . Too bad they don’t have a place to leave comments… Oh, but you can do so in this blog here.

I am really sorry I haven’t found anything for us to do to help stop this ecocide. If anyone has a lead, please please share it with us.

Restricted Area: Marine Turtles' Nesting Ground

As you might have expected, not much has changed since I last posted about the ecocide alert by the Grupo Posadas at Xcacel-Xcacelito. Essentially, the turtles are going down.

The Grupo Posadas claims to have acquired the necessary permits to build in the area, and also claims that the development will not go on in it but subjacent to it, and that consequently the development will not harm the Xcacel-Xcacelito ecosystem. Yeah–tell that to the turtles.

Anyway, the Mexican environmental and urban development authorities, in turn, claim the Grupo Posadas is pulling this information out of their ass. They said that they have not been involved in the procuring of any permits for these corporate hypocrites, and that no building permits are in the works for the area either. Further, they said that any legal complaint must go to Tulum, as the area is out of their jurisdiction. Huh?

And so, the Grupo Posadas goes on destroying the endangered turtles’ nesting ground and national reserve area and is getting away with it scot-free. Environmentalists can do nothing but roll around in their own frustration, as nobody else seems to care, or at least not enough to do something tangibly useful. The Mexican government, meanwhile, washes its filthy hands in the blood of endangered species plus air, water, and noise pollution.

Maybe they’ll care many years from now, once the country’s popular tourist spots turn murky and putrid, resorts shut down, and locals become the regular victims of cancer and other deadly ailments brought about by humans’ greed and stupidity. Maybe they’ll care–once it’s too late.

Xcacel-Xcacelito

Ludivina Menchaca Castellano, senator of Quintana Roo, deserves a gigantic thumbs up.

She is asking the authorities to stand up for Xcacel-Xcacelito. Menchaca Castellano might be one of the too few to be disheartened about the incompetence and selfishness of state and federal authorities for not doing their job of looking after Mexico’s protected ecosystems-in this case, the turtle reserve at Xcacel-Xcacelito.

She pointed out that the General Wildlife Law, while prohibiting any construction in mangrove zones, doesn’t, well, exactly work. Essentially, it is not so much prohibitive as it is restrictive. It doesn’t stop touristic developments from being built in the country.

An augercast pile grid

Investors must understand, then, that ways have changed, she said: “we currently count on new technologies that allow for construction that abides by the new ecological parameters, in other words, the mangrove can be protected through new building methods-in which you use piles-so as not to touch the mangrove and permit the hydrological flow to take its course.”

It seems that thanks to Menchaca Castellano, investors taking part in the local ecocide must restructure and adapt their plans in order to minimally affect the mangrove. In most of Mexico’s tourist spots, thus far, the concept of ecology has been in absentia.

Menchaca Castellano is encouraging authorities throughout Mexico to keep their eyes on the aforementioned turtle haters of Xcacel-Xcacelito-I mean, the investors-so they don’t get away with anything illegal, causing a catastrophe for the loggerheads and other turtles that depend on the neighboring coast to nest every year.

The senator stressed that the relevant authorities must do their job, and particularly in Quintana Roo, where the ecosystem has been most attacked. Protecting the Xcacel-Xcacelito reserve will be one of the Environmental Commission’s priorities, she said.

Finally!

Now, they will probably be using augercast or CFA piles, which cause the least environmental disturbance, even in terms of noise pollution. (See a diagram.) But, you know, the pumping of concrete mix down the auger and into the ground, is going to be felt no matter what. And the yelling of the construction workers. And the noise made by the cement mixers, the trucks, and so on.

The lesser of two evils is still evil. Shouldn’t we just leave the remaining reserves and preserved ecosystems alone to thrive? Do we even need more hotels?

Scratch that-stupid question-of course we do! It’s only right that the developers’ and investors’ pockets keep getting fatter and the environment be continually desecrated.  Silly me.

A loggerhead turtle (photo by Wikimedia)

Green turtles and loggerheads residing in the “marine turtles sanctuary” on the Riviera Maya’s Virgin Beaches are about to lose their home.

The Punta Carey complex and the Grupo Posadas, according to unofficial sources, have been destroying this protected habitat and effectively committing ecocide. What for? Why, so Grupo Posadas can build a tourist complex and make investors happy, of course!

Although the Grupo Posadas is currently wreaking eco havoc in an area adjacent to Xcacel-Xcacelito, ecologists say the turtles’ habitat and breeding will be affected and that the ecosystem will soon be lost.

But, you know, since the tourist complex will be sustainable, I guess all is A-ok! It’s odd, though, that those in charge of the construction are MIA. Meanwhile, the city, its people, and authorities are keeping their eyes and ears on the elections in Tulum. Manuel Barrero Gutiérrez, director of Tulum’s Urban Development, claims to have been ignorant about the Grupo Posadas project. On Wednesday, his personnel will be visiting the site to conduct the corresponding inspections, which require certain looking after the environment. If the project doesn’t meet the proper standards, it will be shut down.

The area comprises 90 acres of jungle, mangrove, coastal dune, beaches, cenotes, and coralline reefs. It’s the most important beach in Mexico for these turtles to nest; biologists venture out at night to help protect the eggs and young. The turtles come to Xcacel-Xcacelito in May through October.

The project was announced in 2006 and requires $ 26.7 million to develop. It will consist of 250 rooms throughout 370 acres. A development of similar magnitude and cause of ecocide is the Ho­tel Pa­raí­so Xca­cel del Gru­po Gon­zá­lez An­gu­lo.

Green female turtle nesting on the beach