Tulum Park’s Battle Against Urbanization

Tulum, QRoo — Tulum National Park, described as a diamond in the tiara of protected areas on the Yucatán Peninsula, is facing constant danger and permanent siege from ambitions incapable of understanding the common good. The park's combination of jungles, coastal dunes, white Caribbean beaches, the fantastic colors of the sea, and the proximity of portions of the planet's second-largest barrier reef constitutes a space of enormous beauty that also offers an invaluable cultural expression and a clear example of peninsular biodiversity.

This current harassment of the park is not new. In 2023, Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice ruled in favor of the federal government in a controversy filed to prevent local powers, allied with private interests, from including the protected area as part of the Tulum Urban Development Program. This Court ruling halted attempts to strip the park of its capacity as a conservation tool and to free the hands of hoteliers and other investors in the tourism sector, as well as local authorities, to urbanize, alienate, and provide service infrastructure to a territory that, being subject to a conservation decree, should not suffer these land use changes.

When the Court issued its sentence, people and organizations dedicated to the conservation of natural heritage celebrated it with great revelry, viewing it as a historic resolution that would henceforth strengthen the role of protected areas as tools capable of contributing to the safeguarding of Mexico's natural wealth. Today, it appears that the optimism—as happens all too frequently—was premature and fragile. The ambition of those who see the beauty of the Quintana Roo landscape as booty to be squeezed completely and as soon as possible still feel there is room to grow.

Well-informed sources maintain that the state government has offered "in exchange" some land south of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve and a considerable amount of money in return for a portion of the properties that form part of Tulum National Park. This, added to the insistence of local hoteliers to be authorized to introduce potable water, pave streets, and permit the operation of a solid waste collection and transfer system, makes it clear that the intention is to urbanize the irregularly occupied zone within the protected area's polygon.

Fortunately, until now, Commissioner Pedro Álvarez Icaza has shown the fortitude to refuse to accept the proposal, and the Regional Director of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) in Quintana Roo, Juan Carlos Romero Gil, continues to resist the pressure from local investors and defend the integrity of the Park and the validity of the Supreme Court of Justice's ruling.

Tulum National Park is becoming a symbol of resistance against the voracity of those who see the treasures of Quintana Roo's natural heritage only as an opportunity to obtain more money, more quickly. The siege of this park must be added to the construction of a train that serves nothing more than a political narrative, a military road that breaks the integrity of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in two with the sole purpose of providing the armed forces with an additional opportunity to do business, a failed attempt to build a new cruise ship dock where it is not necessary and which responds only to the interests of a family of shipowners, the refusal to subject the Bacalar lagoon system to any legal protection regime, leaving it available for massive tourism development, and the creation of a new park that does not contribute to conserving or protecting anything but does increase opportunities to generate income, which is now so important for armed forces that should provide security for national sovereignty or disappear.

The pressure facing the continuity of the National Park—which figures such as Mr. Palazuelos see as booty—is compounded by a paradox that looms over the entire landscape of the Mexican southeast: this region is home to indigenous peoples who maintain a very strong identity, with a complex worldview and an intimate integration with the landscape and natural resources; and this region is also home to multiple civil society organizations honestly committed to safeguarding the region's ecological integrity and protecting its biodiversity.

The voice of the indigenous peoples is not heard, neither by government decision-makers, nor much less by the owners of money interested in investing to increase it by appropriating natural wealth. The voices of conservationists from civil society are ignored or discredited by identifying them with a supposed complicity with "the right," dismissively setting aside both their knowledge of the issue and the honesty of their positions.

While the "powerful knight" continues to be "Sir Money," the conservation of natural heritage and the protection of biodiversity will have to continue as struggles of resistance. It is in all our interests to join them or, at the very least, to support them frankly and noisily.