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Greenpeace Defends Mexican Reef Threatened by Tourist Project

MEXICO CITY – Greenpeace on Monday joined other organizations in expressing concern about the threat a planned tourist complex in northwestern Mexico would pose to the Sea of Cortez’s Cabo Pulmo reef.

The campaign to protect that hard-coral reef has been spearheaded for several months by several environmental groups opposed to the Cabo Cortes project.

Those organizations on Monday presented a study titled “Cabo Cortes: Destroying Paradise,” which lists the possible damage the 20,000-year-old reef – home to 226 of the 875 fish species in the Sea of Cortez – could suffer.

In 2008, Spanish developer Hansa Urbana was authorized by Mexico’s environment ministry, known as Semarnat, to begin construction of Cabo Cortes in the Los Cabos area of Baja California Sur state.

Last week, however, Semarnat announced the temporary suspension of that permit and requested that Hansa submit more information “to ensure there won’t be any disruption to an ecosystem that has been restored to its natural condition.”

The tourist complex would cover an area of around 3,800 hectares (9,382 acres) and include a marina with 490 moorings, two golf courses, 30,000 guestrooms and 5,000 homes for workers, meaning its scale would rival that of Cancun, Mexico’s leading tourist destination.

The project is contiguous with the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park, home to a small community of residents who have been instrumental in efforts to protect and restore the reef over the past 15 years.

“For Greenpeace, the fact that authorization was initially given and now may be modified due to irregularities shows the lack of rigor in approving projects that endanger the environment,” the organization said in a statement.

“It’s incredible that a destructive project like Cabo Cortes could be authorized in a single step and then two years later – due only to pressure from society and legal appeals – they decide to modify that authorization,” Greenpeace said.

“We don’t want authorization for Cabo Cortes to be modified; we want it to be cancelled,” said Greenpeace Mexico spokesman Alejandro Olivera.

Greenpeace said Mexico’s National Commission for Protected Areas has objected to the environmental-impact report submitted by Hansa, which faces probes in Spain over alleged irregularities in the permit process for its Novo Carthago project.

“Greenpeace finds it unacceptable that Spanish real-estate and tourist companies, key players in the unsustainable development that has occurred in Spain in recent years ... intend to replicate the disaster they’ve caused in other countries,” the statement said. EFE