Mexican environmental groups and other activists said that Spanish real-estate development firm Hansa Urbana will destroy one of the world’s best-preserved coral reefs if it is allowed to go through with a massive tourist project in the Baja California peninsula.

ALICANTE, Spain – Mexican environmental groups and other activists said that Spanish real-estate development firm Hansa Urbana will destroy one of the world’s best-preserved coral reefs if it is allowed to go through with a massive tourist project in the Baja California peninsula.

The activists made their concerns known during a gathering in the eastern city of Alicante, the corporate headquarters of Hansa Urbana, which has acquired 3,800 hectares (9,380 acres) in the Mexican municipality of Los Cabos to build a luxury development similar to Cancun with a projected population of 40,000 people.

Plans for the Cabo Cortes project, to be located a short distance from the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park in the southern part of the peninsula, include 27,000 rooms distributed among seven hotels and 10,000 residential housing units, as well as two golf courses, a 490-boat marina, lagoons, canals, a private jet port and other support infrastructure.

Greenpeace Mexico representative Alejandro Olivera told Efe that Cabo Pulmo was dubbed the “world’s aquarium” by Jacques Cousteau due to its important Gulf of California marine ecosystem.

Considered Mexico’s best-preserved marine ecosystem, the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization designated that reserve as a World Heritage Natural Site in 2005.

In addition to its ecological importance, the great wealth of marine life that inhabits the coral reef makes that region’s fishing grounds (only outside the limits of the park) the source of 50 percent of all fish caught in Mexico, Greenpeace said, adding that that abundance could be threatened by the tourist project.

Construction of the large tourist project would mean the end of the marine reserve, both due to construction work and to subsequent residential and tourist activity, Olivera said, citing destructive elements such as waste generated by the transit of boats and noting that the complex will use valuable resources in an area of water scarcity.

Judith Castro, with the Friends for the Conservation of Cabo Pulmo association and a member of the affected community, told Efe it is regrettable that Hansa Urbana wants to “export to Mexico the residential tourism model that has destroyed Spain’s coastline in recent decades.”

She said the developer has a partial construction license and can start building whenever it wants, but added that there are a score of Mexican organizations that are fighting to prevent the project from getting off the ground.

Castro recalled that Cabo Pulmo’s 120 inhabitants stopped fishing in 1995 to preserve the area’s natural resources and began a move toward sustainable tourism by offering diving and canoe excursions that enable them to be economically self-sufficient.

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