MEXICO CITY.- Mexico's President Felipe Calderón announced this Friday that the Cabo Cortés tourism project to be located in Baja California Sur was canceled due to Spanish company Hansa Urbana not being able to confirm its sustainability.
In his residence of Los Pinos, Calderón explained that there's no "absolute certainty" that the development, encompassing 3,800 hectares (roughly 15 mi2) "wouldn't cause irreversible damages" to the ecosystem.
"A few years ago the Hansa Baja Company started procedures to build a touristic megadevelopment called Cabo Cortés" explained Calderón referring to company Hansa Baja Investments, a subsidiary of Hansa Urbana.
"Due to the ecologic significance of Cabo Pulmo, the possibility of touristic development Cabo Cortés being built on the 15 square miles next to the National Park rose concern in local communities as well as in scholars and environmentalist associations" he added.
Several Non-Governmental Organizations as well as local and international preservationist groups had been accusing Cabo Cortés project of threatening Cabo Pulmo's marine reserve declared a protected area back in 1995 and Natural World Heritage site by the UNESCO in 2005.
Since it's "such an important area for the Sea of Cortés and the country itself ( ) we all must be completely sure that this won't cause irreversible damage, and that certainty simply has not been found" asserted the President.
Nevertheless, he pointed that the annulment of the project as originally proposed "does not mean investors are left unprotected", he presented to them the option of starting a new plan congruent with Cabo Pulmo's sustainability.
"In any case it will be necessary to start all over again beginning with the research and analysis of a project that is absolutely and indisputably compatible with Cabo Pulmo's sustainability if they still have this venture in mind" he said. According to him, the Mexican Government is "set on respecting investor's rights and protecting their assets".
He also made clear that he "is in the best disposition to assist the interested parties with a legitimate right over the property ( ) in the making of a new plan that allows for locals to benefit from tourism" and at the same time guarantees the preservation of the Mexican World Heritage site.
A new compound would have to be built hand in hand with "well-founded assessments from the Mexican scientific community specialized in environmental issues" and taking into account the local public opinion at every moment, he remarked.
The aim is to design a project that creates job opportunities, facilitates tourism to this natural site while at the same time protecting ecosystems in their entirety as well as generating monetary resources to make its own preservation possible, he added.
Cabo Pulmo's Marine reserve gives refuge to 226 of a total of 875 species of fish existing in California's Gulf; it's a national park with an extension of 7,111 hectares (27.5 mi2), 99% of them located in the sea with the best preserved coral reef of the Pacific.
"We know it's possible to find a balance between tourism and economy ( ) with the required conservation of our immense natural riches" declared Calderón.
He finalized stating that his Government has the sensibility to listen to its people's concerns while keeping in mind the need for legal certainty any investment requires.
According to the original arrangement, Cabo Cortés would have included a 490 mooring leisure harbor installed on sand banks as well as 27,000 rooms and 2 golf courts.
President of the Mexican Center of Environmental Law (CEMDA by its initials in Spanish), Gustavo Alanís, qualified Calderon's decision as "a triumph for the preservation and protection of the environment and Nature" he announced.
It is "a message in support of legality and rule of law regarding environmental issues", and for investors also "in the sense that they are welcome to México as long as they respect nature and abide by the existing environmental law" Alanís added.
He also considered this outcome to be a "collective effort" of individuals and ecologist NGOs who during the last five years had been trying to stop the development of the touristic project in Cabo Cortés on the ground of the risks that it presented to Cabo Pulmo and the area.
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