Successes

Victory for Cabo Pulmo

WiLDCOAST is happy to announce that on June 15^th, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon canceled the building permits for the mega-development Cabo Cortes, that was planed for the East Cape of Baja  California Sur.

The project would have brought more than 200,000 new residents to the edge of Cabo Pulmo National Park, a reserve that is considered to be the world’s most robust marine conservation area.

“We are so happy that President Calderon applied the law and canceled this very destructive and speculative project,” said Serge Dedina WiLDCOAST’s Executive Director. ” This is a very important environmental victory for everyone: WiLDCOAST, the community of Cabo Pulmo, civil society, Mexico, and the world,” 

WiLDCOAST has spent the last two years drawing international attention to the ill-conceived Cabo Cortes project that scientists believed would have damaged the Cabo Coral Reef, the only living reef in the Sea of Cortes. 

The announcement was made three days before the start of the G-20 Meeting in Los Cabos, Baja California South, Mexico—a 45-minute drive from Cabo Pulmo.

In 1995, the Mexican government declared the reef a protected area and later upgraded it to marine park status. Local residents, who transformed their economy from fishing to ecotourism, aided the effort and the amount of life on the reef blossomed.

Between 1999 and 2009, Cabo Pulmo saw a 460 percent increase in its total amount of fish—or biomass“Oceanographers such as Dr. Octavio Aburto from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, believed that Cabo Pulmo’s coral reef would not have survived for too long if the development moved forward”, said Fay Crevoshay, Communications Director of WiLDCOAST.

The developers, Hansa Baja Investments, planned to build a 9,400-acre (3,800-hectare) resort, with 18 hotels, condominiums, two golf courses, and a marina for 490 boats 

In his statement President Calderon said, "Because of its size, we have to be absolutely certain that it (Cabo Cortes) wouldn't cause irreversible damage, and that absolute certainty simply hasn't been proved.

Our team will continue its effort to work with Mexico’s National Protected Area Commission to conserve the coastline of the Cabo Pulmo Marine Reserve and to secure the entire park buffer zone for conservation.

But for now WiLDCOAST is very grateful to all our supporters supported our successful campaign to conserve Cabo Pulmo.

WiLDCOAST Work Two Years to Stop the Cabo Cortes Development (Since 2010)

WiLDCOST carried out an intensive national and international media campaign to protect the sensitive Cabo Pulmo coral reef by pressuring decision makers to cancel the Cabo Cortes mega-project. 

Media outputs included 73 web articles, featuring front page Huffington Post (Green Section) and front page Yahoo Mexico, 13 prime-time national television segments, 24 newspaper articles (in the US, Mexico, and Spain), 9 radio interviews, 6 local TV segments, for a total of 125 media hits. The campaign to protect Cabo Pulmo reached an estimated audience of 200 million. 

We organized photo exhibitions in the Federal Senate and Legislative Palace in Mexico City to highlight the importance of the Cabo Pulmo coral reef that led legislators to pass official motions against the construction of Cabo Cortes and pressure Mexico’s environmental protection agency to revoke the project’s permits.

We mobilized key stakeholders in the Los Cabos region to oppose the destruction of the coral reef in Cabo Pulmo by rejecting the Cabo Cortés project.