In Tulum, Quintana Roo, the Jaguar Park is presented as a jaguar preservation and tourism development project. However, the construction of a luxury hotel managed by the Army and other infrastructures raises doubts about the environmental impact and the commitment to the conservation of the feline.
“There is the Sedena hotel, they are going to inaugurate it soon,” says a woman who works at the surveillance post located in front of the construction of one of the entrances to the Jaguar Park, a project aimed at the preservation and conservation of this feline in Tulum, Quintana Roo, where the Army is building one of the six Maya Train hotels.
At the end of a road full of buildings under construction where the skeleton of the Mayan culture museum is taking shape, the woman points to the space behind her, which corresponds to the park’s buffer zone, an area of 282 hectares that should surround the 1,967 hectares of the core zone to mitigate possible impacts. However, the two areas are more than 10 kilometers apart and are not even connected.
Within the National Jaguar Park, 2.6 kilometers from the archaeological zone of Tulum, the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) is building the largest of the six tourist complexes it will manage along the railway route.
It is a building with 352 rooms, parking for 392 vehicles, a swimming pool, pools, spa, and temazcal, as well as a bar, shops, and gym. The render on the hotelestrenmaya.mx page shows a complex of four concrete buildings connected by three large palapas.
The Maya Train Hotel will be connected to the Maya Train station, which is also under construction, and to the Tulum International Airport, which, alongside the hotel, is operated by the Olmeca-Maya-Mexica Airport, Railway, and Auxiliary Services Group (GAFSAOMM).
The army-owned company also manages the Jaguar Park.
The environmental impacts of the hotel in the area cannot be calculated because the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) has not shared the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), despite being requested through an information request. The federal agency limited itself to responding to the request with the document of another of the Maya Train hotels, the one in Edzná, Campeche, which was presented to Semarnat in September 2023 when the building was already 25% complete.
Initially, a public investment of 1,600 million pesos (mdp) was estimated for the Jaguar Park, but at the end of February 2024, Governor Mara Lezama (Morena) spoke of more than 2 thousand mdp. The new project will include the Tulum National Park and the archaeological zone, which will be connected by a bridge.
According to the decree of creation of the Jaguar Park, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) on July 27, 2022, only “low-impact tourism” activities should be developed in the buffer zone, but in addition to the museum and the Sedena hotel, administrative offices, a visitor center, a central station for electric buses, and 46 commercial modules are being built.
Biologists and environmentalists warn that the Jaguar Park only encourages tourism and not the defense of the feline
Some biologists and environmental defenders claim that the government maintains the need to open the park to preserve the feline and “stop the excessive urban growth of Tulum,” but in fact, a new project is being promoted to serve mass tourism in an already saturated territory.
“It seems to me a park that serves for recreation, for tourism, and the jaguar only has the name,” says Raúl Padilla Borja from the Jaguar Wildlife Center.
“I hope that the decree of creation of the protected natural area works to stop the excessive urban growth of Tulum and to preserve its vegetation. However, such a small space does not serve for the conservation of the jaguar as a species, since large carnivores require large territories: they need to move to find a partner that allows them genetic exchange, so that the future of their species continues to be prosperous.”
The Jaguar Park is being built on an area of 2,249 hectares even though, at the time of announcing its creation in January 2022, the government spoke of more than 250,000 hectares. The EIS of the park states that the project has the dual objective of protecting the feline and developing tourism, but according to the president of the Jaguar Wildlife Center, the two purposes are not compatible.
“The jaguar cannot be preserved in a place with so much human activity, so much noise, with facilities and buildings that fragment the space and corner the feline,” says Raúl Padilla Borja.
Opacity in the Works
The EIS of the Jaguar Park was presented by the Secretariat of Agrarian, Territorial, and Urban Development (Sedatu) after the start of the works, on June 30, 2023, and has not yet been approved.
The document only mentions the presence of the Sedena hotel in the park and does not give any specifications about the property, which does not appear on any of its maps.
The army’s hotel complex also does not exist in the promotional videos that show the wonders of the Jaguar Park, nor in the July 2022 decree that declares “the region known as Jaguar” as a “protected natural area.” Only a year later, when it came under the tutelage of GAFSAOMM, the Sedena hotel was mentioned in a government statement as a work integrated into the park.
The Maya Train Hotel in Tulum exists, but its presence is opaque, and the authorities did not respond to a request for an interview. It involves the director of the Jaguar Flora and Fauna Protection Area, María del Carmen Morales Pérez, and Fernando Orozco Ojeda, regional director of the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP), who in 2020 had been dismissed for allegations of corruption and extortion of businessmen.
For months, the governor of Quintana Roo, Mara Lezama, has announced that the Jaguar Park is about to be inaugurated. There is still no date, but the government claims that in 2023 it received more than 600,000 visitors.
Disordered Growth in Tulum
Pablo Suárez Dávila moved to Tulum, Quintana Roo, when he was 15 years old. It was the late ’90s, and the Caribbean village that developed around a single block was visited only by backpackers.
“There was life in the sea, now it’s a desert. There were dunes on the beach before they started building on them, and there were only a couple of cabin rentals. Today the hotels have created a barrier that almost completely prevents public access to the beach,” says Pablo Suárez, who works in rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment systems.
“In terms of infrastructure and services, the municipality was not and is not prepared to receive all the people who arrived later. Solid waste is piled up in open dumps, and the treatment plant works only for a small part of the population. The rest of the wastewater is poured into the ground and contaminates the aquifer and the cenotes.”
According to Sedatu, Tulum is one of the five municipalities with the highest growth at the national level, and the arrival of one million and 800 thousand visits a year is the trigger for this chaotic expansion.
The government assures that the recently inaugurated Tulum International Airport and after the upcoming inauguration of the Maya Train station, the number of tourists will increase even more. By 2053, more than 2 million 400 thousand people per year are expected to arrive.
Source: Animal Politico