ON BACALAR'S DEFENSE. COLLOQUIAL VERSION

people, and where there are fewer limitations in the impacts caused by visitors. For the same area there may be multiple load capacities. But this concept does not involve the environmental unless it affects the quality of the landscape, which is the product that the tourist buys.

And even more, it should not be lost sight of the fact that the development and choice of management objectives in a protected natural area is a human, social process, it is not physical, nor ecological, nor biological. That is, determining how much burden a site will bear, or how much change is acceptable, if it is subjected to a series of determined human activities (direct and indirect), is ALWAYS a human, social, informed or uninformed judgment, and supposedly based on science, but it is created, determined and sustained in the environment of political discourse and in many cases by particular interests, institutional or group. Even if there are scientists involved, who can give us information so that locally, in theory, we can assess How Much Is Too Much? and local experts can answer that question, in the end carrying capacity is always going to be a political decision.

Several authors insist that tourism carrying capacity should be seen as a comprehensive planning process, as a strategic policy instrument for the development of local models of sustainable tourism and not as a scientific measure, a unique number or a magic number. O'Reilly (1986) states that carrying capacity should be used as an indicator, as a baseline to identify critical thresholds that require attention, not as a fixed numerical limit, but as an indicator when making decisions and applying controls or regulations, at the time that is required.

In the case of Bacalar, a central aspect for a definition of recreational carrying capacity would depend on the needs, values and concerns of visitors and those in charge of managing the Lagoon, reconciling the load capacity determined

by APIQROO, as a concessionaire for nautical use, or that established by SEMAR as responsible for the integral management of the body of water, of CONAGUA as in charge of the sustainability and water quality of inland water bodies, but also of the Mexican Geological Survey, which knows about the geohydrological processes of the system, of the users and historical inhabitants of the lagoon who know very well what meta image they have of the body of water that generationally has been part of their life, of service providers who know how many boats can interact and why, and thus each estimates a load capacity according to their approach and vision. In this way, 194