The failed PNA, in Quintana Roo

June 6, 1994, whose Management Program was decreed on October 5, 2018, 24 years later. What was the urgency of decreeing an area to manage, conserve and protect it, if it took almost 30 years, in the case of Sian Ka'an, to create the instrument that precisely allows it to be done in a clear, transparent and substantiated way? The Management Program is so important in a protected natural area that the decrees themselves establish an average of 6 months to a year maximum for the creation and decree of said program, but as evidenced by the cases mentioned above, practically no agency responsible for the PNA saw it as a priority. The urgency seemed to be at all times to take control of the site, although it was not treated with rules, in some cases, almost for three decades.

The failed PNA, in Quintana Roo

The state of Quintana Roo has 5,021,200 hectares of continental territory. Of that area, 21% of the state territory is included in an PNA. That is, 2 out of every 10 hectares of the state area are under the control of some environmental authority, mainly coastal / tourist areas. This is without counting the 6'383,701.59 hectares of territorial sea that CONANP, with the support of the NGOs as Friends of Sian Ka'an, A.C., was awarded under administration in Banco Chinchorro, Arrecifes de Xcalak, in Puerto Morelos, but especially with the Biosphere Reserve of the Mexican Caribbean, which in 2016 placed as PNA a total of 5'754, 055.36 hectares of territorial sea off the coast of Quintana Roo. Let me be more specific, CONANP placed as gigantic PNA ALL the coastline of Quintana Roo, everything that was not in marine/ coastal PNA previously, was included in this PNA.

It would be worth mentioning that it is incredible that, to establish and decree a reserve of this scope and of this caliber, it has taken 5 months (from July to December 2016) from its justifying study to its decree and management program included, and that although it affected an area greater than that of the entire State, it was presented and promoted by CONANP and ejidatarios of the Yum Balam Reserve, that were not affected by his decree because they had the reserve of Tiburó Ballena and Yum Balam, but they gave the social validation to enjaretale an PNA to the rest of the coast to the border with

Belize. CONANP will be able to say it complied with the consultation for public opinion, which was carried out only virtually, as cited in the MarFund report, a few days, and taking into consideration that it affected ALL inhabitants, users, service providers and anyone whose property bordered this reserve and now it will have to ask CONANP for its blessing for any project or business that it wants to develop in the adjacent area or on the coast that includes that reserve, practically no one found out. The Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve, whose management and public consultation went unnoticed by most people, has a marine area greater than the entire land area of the state. Which means that now CONANP has control and dictates what can and cannot be done in ALL the coast of Quintana Roo, when it pleases and according to the case / client. It is almost insulting what MARFund confirms in its report The justification? this PNA had a fast track because it urged the government of Mexico, then chaired by Enrique Peña Nieto, to make the show and have something to show at the opening of the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This decree would allow tourist activity in the area, but would shield it against the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons. In turn, the governor of Quintana Roo, Carlos Joaquín González, reported that the decree protected 37,000 hectares of jungle and mangroves. 5 months including the review and structuring of the Management Program and not only the decree. The approval in 5 months included a Management Program that leaves many doubts and raises many concerns. As an example, it states emphatically in its Rule 53. "The construction of docks, breakwaters, breakwaters, breakwaters, jetties, platforms or any infrastructure, with the exception of artificial reefs, is prohibited; that affects coral formations, seagrasses, dunes or modifies coastal dynamics", that is, along the coast. The implications of those lines are incredibly complex. The processes and consequences of this hyperfast decree deserve an investigation and a complete book. By contrast, many of the state and municipal protected natural areas in Quintana Roo, at the time of this research, did not have a management program for the most part, that is, the state government and the municipal government had been decreeing protected natural areas since 1983 without taking equal importance to the obligation to generate and decree the management program, creating protected natural areas as a way to collect

hectares under their control, without written rules, without zoning. It is understandable, because as happens to CONANP, the state, now with the IBANQROO (Institute of Biodiversity and Protected Natural Areas of Q. Roo) never has sufficient funds to properly operate its PNAs. A fertile territory for chaos and corruption.

These protected natural areas were established using only representatives of community groups, on behalf of the entire community; overexploiting the media to build custom discourses, with procedures and zonings designed to suit the client, to increase prestige or guarantee obtaining funds, manipulating the information they provide, making up community participation as if it really existed, and insisting that PNAs work, without giving solid arguments, are just some of the strategies of the promoters of these protected natural areas, when Mexico's national reports to international entities and committees of experts are nothing more than lists of excuses for why commitments have not been met, the absence of real performance parameters or their objective measurement, while more PNA continues to be decreed.

There is also the Voluntary Area for Conservation (ADVC) model, which is an additional strategy for generating protected areas in privately or socially owned territories to continue accumulating surface, which justifies the fulfillment of the country's commitments to the international community, with the promise of benefiting the holders of the territories with the same benefits that the reserves receive. consolidating local governance and protecting biodiversity, but only contributed to CONANP's manic compulsion to accumulate hectares, without stopping to verify that these new private community PNAs are strengthened, and creating new schemes of pressure or incen-tives (which seem very much conditioning / threatening) so that social and private owners "dare" to include their territories as ADVC. And as the effort is to accumulate hectares, while CONANP points more stars at the expense of the locals, the ADVC are joining the paper PNAs, with honorable exceptions thanks to the owners, not to the triad. But that's the subject of another document.

When you review state and state decrees together, you can easily determine how the triad operates in them, reviewing the elements in common between them:

• The surveillance and administration is in charge of one of its instances in environmental matters, SEMA or the assigned state instance, in this case it would be the IBANQROO for the state and SEMARNAT, in this case

CONANP, for the federation. • The management plans or programs are in charge of the authority and some ONGA, and other authorities, researchers or academics are summoned: NEVER to the communities. • The authority is responsible for authorizing all types of use in the PNA (even if it has not previously been within its competence). • The state or federal authority in charge may make "agreements" with third parties that carry out activities within the PNA including administration or exploitation (and generally this means granting concessions between actors of the triad). • Any public or private work project that is intended to be carried out within the protected natural area, or in its area of influence, must have the authorization of the "administrator" instances of the areas and must be in congruence with the guidelines established by the Management Program that, as mentioned above, can take more than 20 to 30 years to be decreed, which subjects local populations and other actors, outside the triad, who wish to intervene in the territory, to a legal vacuum and mercy of this group, for decades. When the surface of the State territory in protected natural areas is analyzed in detail, whether of federal or state administration, we can realize that just over 70% of the surface is more managed, managed and controlled by the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas, a total of 7,140,318.63 hectares or 71,403,1863 km2, equivalent to the sum of the surfaces of the states of Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Querétaro, Colima, Aguascalientes, Tlaxcala and Mexico City, which must be administered, monitored and managed (in theory articulated to the actions and policies of other sectors) by the CONANP of Quintana Roo, which has a limited number of personnel, between 50 and 200 people, with poor infrastructure and equipment, and always without money to operate. Why do we say it's always broken? Because in reports like Ramsar he keeps answering the question, What do you need? Money. The state has the same problem with even fewer staff being responsible for the comprehensive management of 312,860.61 hectares. This last point is key,

when you want to understand why so much insistence on decreeing an PNA in Bacalar? In a simplistic way, the followers of the triad tend to consider the reaction of opposition to the decree of the PNA in the lagoon body of Bacalar as "ignorance" on the part of the inhabitants and historical users, but they do not know that the key issue is not the decree of the PNA, nor the protection, nor the conservation. The key to imposing an PNA is to give the state or federation a "play" in the authorization of projects in the PNA and in the area of influence. The PNA is key because it empowers and controls the triad to achieve its materialistic goals, while pretending to conserve or protect. Really what is promoted is "saving nature to negotiate with it".

Proponents might argue that establishing the PNA is a positive thing because it would avoid negative environmental impacts, but they forget that there are already regulations to prevent that, that there are already planning and regulatory instruments and that, in the case of Bacalar, the municipality has not fulfilled its obligation to create the key instruments to regulate urban development: such as the Urban Development Program and building regulations or key regulations for economic activities in its field of action. Since it is precisely the municipality that has direct responsibility for the urban area, adjacent to the Lagoon. Have the PNAs in Quintana Roo served to stop pollution? It does not seem so, as an example Sánchez et al (2013) when conducting a study on the content of stable isotopes of Nitrogen product of anthropogenic activities in several bodies of water in Thalassia testudinum, a very common algae in all coastal areas of the state, not only found, as expected, this component in the samples that we already know are affected by pollution of wastewater discharges such as the Nichupté Lagoon, in Cancun; they also found that:

“…The Yum Balam Reserve and the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve showed higher d15N values although they are in areas of low development and with restricted tourist activity …” Well, the researchers will have to excuse me, they perhaps wanted to mild the finding, but Yum Balam and Sian Ka'an, are not simple areas of low development and with restricted tourist activity, they are Protected Natural Areas for at least the last 30 years, as to show this type of Nitrogen values. This finding is especially relevant, because Luisa Falcón has used the argument of increased nitrogen in the water of the Bacalar Lagoon as one of her

justifications for continuing to promote the establishment of the Ramsar site, as she stated for a newspaper, in May 2021.

“…Falcón knows the lagoon well. She first came in 2004 to do a master's thesis. So, the level of nitrogen in the crystal clear water was so low that it could not be detected on their meters. Since then she has traveled three times a year to follow the monitoring and has checked the drastic and accelerated growth of substances in the water. "We've been saying for years that nitrogen and phosphorus levels are rising," she says indignantly. "I applied for the PNA in 2017, but I needed the social consensus of the Bacalar community. We worked on that proposal for years and it did not prosper, it never left the offices because they do not want a protected status for the lagoon," she adds.

All in all, he doesn't give up. A request is underway for the lagoon to be added to the 142 sites designated as Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar

Sites) in Mexico. But Falcon fears that the conservation commitment will come late to the pace of ecosystem deterioration.…” Later, in volume III we present "The changing discourse of Luisa Falcón" where we analyze, with the methodology of discourse analysis and more closely, with the media statements themselves as their media strategy has been changing, in which media as prestigious as El País®, the BBC® and The New York Times®, have fallen into the trap of not verifying sources or not conducting a real critical investigation, in order to participate in a yellowish discourse and scandal with the same sources that have powerful conflicts of interest. If, as we will see later, many – the majority – of the PNAs were decreed without the community participating or knowing, or through manipulation of information and simulated "participation" processes, that many of the PNAs do not have a management program, that pollution has not been stopped, nor uncontrolled urban development, nor the illegal extraction of natural resources, and if third parties have been privileged to make use of the sites, the dispossession has been validated and even encouraged, to limit the access of premises to pristine places, to have exclusive sites that can be put at the order of the highest bidder (big capital), or where they can carry out their research (their exclusive natural laboratories in situ), conditioning access to those who can afford it, so that tourists "enjoy" them, and then restructuring the instruments to adjust to the client, the objective of the promoters of the reservations is very clear to have control in a disguised way.

Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve

What are Biosphere Reserves? The MAB-UNESCO Programme describes them as "learning spaces for sustainable development". It states that they are places intended to test interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing the changes and interactions of social and ecological systems, such as giant laboratories, where researchers are supposed to be able to understand conflict prevention and biodiversity management. UNESCO assumes that these reserves function as laboratories where local solutions to global problems can be "offered". These reservations are requested by governments, and are validated and recognized by the international community. The page of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Programme (UNESCO) describes the Programme's Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB-UNESCO) as an intergovernmental-mental scientific initiative aimed at establishing a scientific basis in order to improve the relationship between human beings and the environment. But the MAB focuses on the exact and natural sciences to supposedly improve people's livelihoods and preserve natural or orderly ecosystems, thus promoting supposedly innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable. However, it remains short-sighted in scope due to its one-sided scientific approach to the sciences (exact and biological) that maintain their hegemony in the PNA declaration system, so it is clearly only a self-validation initiative. This is relevant because it has been social scientists who during the last decades have been raising their voices to denounce the disastrous consequences of the imposition of this type of neoliberal environmental mechanisms, not only on human populations, but on ecosystems themselves and biocultural heritage. But the triad has its private party, and as happens to the local inhabitants and historical users of the territories, social scientists are also not invited.

At this point it is not surprising that in the early 1980s, a team of researchers from the Quintana Roo Research Center (CIQROO) and personnel sent from Mexico City, members of the Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE) carried out extensive preliminary research on the eastern region of Quintana Roo and that those investigations ended in an PNA decree.

The researchers studied the biological and ecological aspects of the area, its habitats, geology, climatology and wildlife in order to argue the high level of diversity of its ecosystem. They also studied the productive activities of local populations, including ethnobotany and hunting. The research was funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT); the findings were published in 1983 and underpinned the creation of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve was established by presidential decree in 1986. This happened exactly when G. Halffter, the creator and main promoter of the Mexican concept of Biosphere Reserves, was Deputy Director of Scientific Development of CONACYT (1982-1986) and was in the process of earning the merits to be appointed President of the International Council of the MABUNESCO Program (1984-1986). The decree of Sian Ka'an, had the support of the Governor of Quintana Roo, at that time, Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, and the technical support of the Research Center of Quintana Roo (CIQROO) from where G. Halftter became a Member of the Technical Council (1986-1995). The Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve became the flag of the Mexican model of reserves and then resources began to arrive to meet the research objective of these models. Since the administration, the governing body of the reserve, was allocated to CIQROO (which would later become ECOSUR), about 70% of the research budget of this institution during that period was allocated to projects in Sian Ka'an, and many of these projects were carried out in cooperation with international institutions and funds. CIQROO (under the supervision and support of Halffter), together with officials from the Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE) and the state government created a Council of Representatives, which was established in 1986, but ceased to function in 1988. This was due to a rupture between SEDUE and CIQROO over aspects of administration and approach of both instances. After the decree of Sian Ka'an in 1986 and his incorporation into the MAB-UNESCO network, SEDUE, appointed one of its deputy directors of Mexico City, the biologist Juan José Consejo, as Director of the reserve. However, the resources were to operate through CIQROO and after a few months, differences arose with the Director of CIQROO on the approach and governance of the reserve; these ultimately irreconcilable differences

polarized the bodies that were involved in the Sian Ka'an council and ultimately resulted in a rupture between the two institutions. This conflict created uncertainty between foundations and international organizations which chose to support the newly created civil association Friends of Sian Ka'an (ASK), an organization created by prominent political figures and businessmen of Cancun, all influential people, very influential, involved in real estate businesses, hoteliers, restaurateurs, some politicians and socialites. The reservation was decreed on January 20, 1986, by June 5 of that year friends of Sian Ka'an was constituted. Which was very convenient. ASK took the lead in implementing alternative projects in Sian Ka'an. The reserve council was reinstated with the participation of interest groups in 1994, which would later include representatives of communities in the area of influence of the reserve, but consider the type of citizen participation the model of participation of the members of the communities remained in a consultation or at most as a mechanism of appeasement, because from the composition of these councils, the basis of the information for decisionmaking and the ultimate decision was in the hands of the authorities and scientists of natural and exact sciences (and their stakeholders). The Biosphere Reserve of Sian Ka'an is located in the municipalities of Tulum, Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Othón P. Blanco, in Quintana Roo, comprises a polygon of 652 thousand 192 hectares declared as a reserve in 1986, and a few years later declared by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve and Natural Site World Heritage Site. It is one of the beneficiary areas of the PNA Fund and the Small Grants Program of the Global Environment Facility among many other sources of funding, whose funds are "lowered" through NGOs and Research Centers. While the government, academics and environmental organizations consider this a triumph, because at the end of the day they are the beneficiaries:

The Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, founded in 1986, in Quintana Roo, is a good example of a well-managed natural area based on local participation. Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar (1995)

It contrasts with the perception of the communities of native peoples who were displaced with the decree:

The President of the Republic established Sian Ka'an and they took part of our land from the ejido without asking us. They also didn't compensate us because they claimed it was federal territory.

Esteban Poot, resident of Chumpón (personal interview) (Martínez-Reyes, 2016)

In his research Martínez-Reyes explains that since the establishment of the biosphere reserve, but particularly between 1993 and 2006, all the new projects seemed to be titled "Exploitation", whether the resource was honey, wood or orchids. These initiatives and programs arose from a perspective that often conflicted with Mayan moral ecology, and in the documented case of the Ejido Tres Reyes, their implementation engendered a clash of views based on nature's colonial condition.

In 2009, after three decades of collaboration with several NGOs (Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations) and Mexican natural resources agencies on conservation projects, the community had had enough. One leader told the author that "They had to kick all the NGOs out of there. They didn't want to know more about conservation." What would drive the community's drastic decision to collectively declare the independence of NGOs and state intervention? From the community's point of view, the decision had nothing to do with being against the conservation or protection of ecosystems. Rather, it was perceived that the extensive time and effort that the people of Tres Reyes had devoted to working on initiatives with different NGOs had resulted in few benefits for the community, as government bureaucracy, environmental agencies and NGOs pushed for the implementation of ineffective projects that were participatory in name and not in effect." Locals fighting in Bacalar came to, among others, the same conclusion.

NGOs, self-described community representatives, benefit from and continue to benefit from this self-validated role by themselves and other members of the triad, while justifying the resources that funders channel to communities by being "representatives" of society. Martínez-Reyes' study shows how two NGOs acted in Tres Reyes: the "institutionalized" ONGA: Amigos de Sian Ka'an and a "localized" ONGA: Uyol Ché (which in fact was created by former employees of Amigos de Sian Ka'an – more of the same, but smaller). Their study exposes the weaknesses of the projects and how they ultimately failed.

I think there comes a point where the community realizes that three spectacular signs and two environmental education workshops do not require a million pesos... that the ONGA receives. This situation is repeated again and again with the funds managed by ONGA, in most of the communities located in PNA areas or in their area of influence. Projects whose vision is a mixture of paternalism and condescension towards the local populations, who stripped and subjected to the control of their territories "for the good of nature and their own future", "in the name of the common good", are "compensated" with miserable punctual subsidies to placate them, give them the feeling of progress at their level, because the power groups consider that the locals cannot go beyond being artisans, collectors, guides or boatmen, so the projects are just a way to simulate that they are included in sustainable development, but who takes the business are the NGOs. In his research Martínez-Reyes mentions that when the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve was created, the proponents (the triad) asked permission from the municipal president as well as the owners of the private lots along the coast of Sian Ka'an, but not from the local Mayan communities, this generated various reactions ranging from resignation, anger to disbelief among these populations of original inhabitants and users. This motivated the local populations to get involved in a struggle of more than three decades trying to recover not only the territories that belonged to them for generations, but access to the coastal zone, since the decree of Sian Ka'an stripped the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto – where these populations in struggle are located – of access to all its coastal zone, along 280 km. It is interesting that the reserve decree, published on 20 January 1986, stipulated "... That of the studies and investigations referred to in the eighth recital, it was determined that a total area of 528,147-66-80 Hectares is required. This area is made up of national land that the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform, considering it of public interest, has reserved for the establishment of the "Biosphere Reserve "Sian Ka'an" under the terms and conditions provided for in this Decree..." but in article sixteen of the same decree it contradicts itself by stating that.- "... The ejidos and communities established on the surface that comprises the "Sian Ka'An Biosphere Reserve" will be obliged to the conservation and care of the area in accordance with the provisions issued for this purpose by the Ministry of Urban Development and Ecology, and in accordance with the provisions of article 154 of the Federal Law on Agrarian Reform..." What the ejidos and mayan communities

have been saying since then: where they established the reserve had been territories of ejidos and communities in an ancestral way, and no one asked them for their opinion, much less permission. If we take into consideration that the coast of Quintana Roo comprises 1,157 km of coastline (INEGI, 2010), Sian Ka'an "reserved" not only the territory of communities and ejidos, but 100% of the coast of a municipality, which at the same time was 24% of the Quintana Roo coast; 24% of the coastline adjoining the Caribbean Sea, to the privilege of some members of the triad and those who could pay the price of neoliberal environmentalism for these law-isolated, pristine and beautiful landscapes. Returning to Sian Ka'an's decree, NGOs almost immediately began to bring in "sustainable development" projects. Martínez-Reyes explains that despite the enthusiasm of the initial projects, there was a shared feeling among the residents: That after stripping them, the government and the NGOs arrived offering projects, which almost never materialized, and again, they returned with more projects as quickly as they discarded those they had previously proposed. They arrived and made their proposals to improve agriculture, beekeeping, wood harvesting, etc. but the local Mayans did not see the benefits of these projects. And when funds ran out, often before the results materialized, NGOs left communities.

“…This is the experience the Tres Reyes community had with Amigos de Sian Ka'an, the ONGA that was largely responsible for advocating and pushing for the creation of the reserve, and why they didn't want to work with them in the end. They considered that NGOs only wanted the money they received from funding agencies and that they moved from one community to another, initiating projects in search of funds and without following up on their previous activities. U Yool Ché was created as a consequence of this problem: its members, once members of Amigos, broke ties with them because they wanted to keep track of development projects even when there was no more funding in the hope that they could eventually get more in the future to continue their work. Other organizations such as UNAM and "gringo" organizations also arrived with projects that they ended up abandoning. The first for planting, but the project was abandoned. The "gringos" arrived to demonstrate the use of pesticides for their crops, but the Maya avoided using them because "insects and animals became stronger and more resistant to them.

The overwhelming wisdom shared was that most development projects lacked positive outcomes and resulted in the community becoming increasingly skeptical about outsiders' intentions.…” Of the cases described by Martínez-Reyes in Sian Ka'an and Galván, in Cuatrociénegas – see What happened to the Cuatrociénegas Valley in the nineties?, it is shown how institutionalized NGOs (and, in many cases, academics and researchers) specialize in making projects and managing international and national donations, to ensure prestige, funds or positions, but do not work with local people. As Igoe, J. (2010) quotes "... This is a result of the growth of the "nature industry", which relies on "the spectacle" of promoting conservation, and being disconnected from the local… ” Other researchers who elucidated the phenomenon of the accumulation of capital for tourism through the dispossession carried out with the decree of this PNA, expose the role of tourism and PNAs as facilitators of dispossession, which is not reduced to taking possession of something specific but occurs through a process of accumulation of common goods to convert them into private property. They explain how PNAs truncate the right to access the areas of greatest value to the community and reserve it for whoever has the capital. As happened to the Mayan peoples of Sian Ka'an. They take these areas and their resources and landscapes and monetize them. While the communities that are dispossessed and displaced, and have nothing left but to work for big capital, they have nothing left but to migrate to the tourist poles. The Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve and the injustice committed against the Mayan indigenous peoples with the establishment of the PNA in 1986, deserves a complete book.

Chacmochuch Lagoon System

The Chacmochuch Lagoon System, which is a state PNA decreed in 1999, located in the continental zone of Isla Mujeres, in the north of the state, has been suffering from negative impacts, due to the lack of a PDU in the area adjacent to the reserve. The fact that it has been an PNA for 22 years has not stopped the unbalanced development in its entire area of influence and in the system itself. It is even part of a POET (Territorial Ecological Planning Program), but this was modified several times increasing the hectares of use.

Originally the document established that 2,293 hectares could be exploited due to the fragility of the ecosystem, but currently nine thousand hectares are contemplated and the number of hotel rooms increased from 19,000 to 22,000, as denounced by local groups. In its decree, specifically in article Eight it states "... Any public or private work project that is intended to be carried out within the protected natural area, or in its area of influence, must have the authorization of the State Government and the Municipalities of Benito Juárez and Isla Mujeres, and must be in congruence with the guidelines established by the Management Program ..." But the conservation of its environmental and scenic quality continues to be lost, pollution and pressure on the ecosystem has not stopped, and the foundation that gave rise to its decree only remained on paper as shown in the note of 2015 the Excessive hotel boom, warns conabio. Lagoon system agonizes in Cancun-Isla Mujeres, where according to CONABIO (National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity) the problems are documented, are considerable and have not been resolved for years due to the lack of surveillance of the environmental authority, in this case of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa). There is contamination by leachate and waste, even five years after the closure of the garbage dump in the continental area, the polluting fluids still drain from the mountains of garbage and will give to the water. In the area of influence, 27,000 hotel rooms were authorized in an area of 1,125 hectares, the Megaproject of Ciudad Mujeres, where names of businessmen such as Carlos Hank Rhon appear. This is the situation of the new Cancun, at the expense of the Chacmochuch lagoon reserve, punished by predation…” Other notes indicate that, five years later things had not improved, the 2020 note entitled Serious pollution of Chacmochuch lagoon. The hotel "Villas del Palmar" of Punta Sam discharges wastewater into the bodies of water, Old landfill is generating serious pollution in the Chacmochuch lagoon, denounce environmentalists, in the absence of the authorities, the environmental monitoring groups promoted from among the communities around the site themselves made complaints, which the authorities ignored. They pointed out to the administration of Paul Carrillo, the lack of maintenance of the landfill without the complaints they have made having been addressed by PROFEPA or the Attorney General's Office for Environmental Protection (PPA). They denounced the felling of mangroves to build stalls selling seafood and fish, and

the only thing the authorities did was "wash their hands" and collect "mochadas" of control and sanitation.

There are also scientific studies that corroborate this situation, a study of contaminants in aquatic pastures found evidence of environmental deterioration of the study area, probably due to the amount of nutrients that was changing the conditions of the lagoon. This system was already between 16 and 21 years old being an PNA when these notes and studies were conducted. The PNA has not contributed to curbing its deterioration, nor does it even have a management program, 22 years after its decree. Chacmochuch did NOT need an PNA, it needed an operating PDU, refor-zar and keep updated the regulations on development and environment, fight corruption, needed an integrated, real management of its BASIN, not only of the wetland that is the reserve. It was not about leaving an area island without construction, it was about articulating the development around, to reduce the risks inherent in interconnected ecosystems and the only thing that has been achieved has been to leave an island of aquatic grass in the body of water rich in leachate nutrients, developments and surface runoff from the areas of influence, where the authority has not put order and only took care of creating a decree to have opinion and control over the development around the body of water, not to regulate it, but to negotiate with the promoters, with other authorities. Corruption. "Saving nature to negotiate with it" does not mean in any of these cases to really save it. It just means that the triad must pretend that it saves it with an PNA, manages to make a profit, and then lets it die slowly because the underlying problem was not really solved, it was just simulated. While this same agony they continue to use it to capitalize on more support, without anyone questioning why their proposal and promises, which gave rise to the PNA, did not turn out... and the evidence is obvious.

Nichupté Mangrove Flora and Fauna Protection Area

This PNA was established by federal decree published on February 26, 2008, supposedly to combat its very serious pollution problem, stated in a scientific document of 2007, which was used among others as a public justification for decreeing the reserve. The document was entitled: Environmental pollution

of the lagoon system of Nichupté (Cancun ‐ Mexico) and was it resolved? No, the problem is still very serious as evidenced by the headlines of many notes: Laguna Nichupté is at risk from toxic metals, Due to its contamination, Laguna Nichupté could cease to be a protected natural area, Pollution kills Laguna Nichupté, Hydrodynamics and transport of pollutants and sediments in the Lagunar Nichupté system - Bojórquez, Quintana Roo, Mexico (CQ063). In their study, Romero-Sierra, et al (2018), recognize that the PNA has not served to avoid such impacts establish that the changes in the geomorphological structure were due to hotel and residential development, and a long-term environmental quality assessment was necessary. The results highlighted the need to establish urgent measures for their recovery and protection, as the pressure with new developments was increasing. Even if the mangrove swamp of the Nichupte Lagoon System was within a Natural Protected Area, the management plan had to improve and protect the water bodies with stronger measures. The fact that it has 13 years of having been decreed as a reserve has not prevented in the lagoon system the discharges of wastewater, which have been increasing over the years, resulting in a chemical imbalance and the presence of pathogenic microorganisms, which potentially represents an ecological and human health problem?

In their research, Maya & Ferrusca (2014) show a worrying scenario that has been repeated as tourism development centers are detonated on the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo. His research analyzes the phenomenon of "short-falling" planning for tourist destinations such as Cancun. Planning that is conceived in the short term, visualizing the tourist areas and their needs, without considering the provision of services that guarantee the quality of life of individuals and families who move to the site, attracted by the promise of work and opportunities for a better quality of life to work in these tourist services. A neoliberal vision of tourism.

Development plans do not consider that at some point plans and sites will be exceeded in their ability to sustain human populations, which coupled with poor long-term planning brings with it exacerbated shortcomings. They explain that it was not enough to design and implement the investment of new tourism development projects, it was also necessary to rethink the coexistence of high-impact tourism and the social and environmental carrying

capacity so as not to exceed the critical limits of sustainability of Cancun and its metropolitan area. It is no longer just ensuring that sustainability parameters are met, it is also ensuring that sustainability contributes to the construction of a more just and equitable society in the present and for the future, in tourist destinations like these.

Nichupté did not require a PNA, it required long-term planning of the area of influence, and combating corruption that allowed excessive growth and the simulation of sustainability around it. It needed to reinforce the rules of operation of APIQROO, which manages navigation in the bodies of water in Quintana Roo, reinforce the regulation of construction, of urban development of the area of influence, not only of the water mirror, of the wetland, but of its entire basin, and to implement sanctions to discourage pollution, it needed to eliminate corruption.

Xcalak Reefs National Park

The case of this PNA, from the point of view of the impact on the community and the consequences of the establishment of the PNA, is exposed in the newspaper article The people who changed fishing for tourism and repented, where fishermen came to realize that the PNA not only failed to fulfill the commitment to bring bonanza and sustainable development, to protect the development opportunities for the locals that had been promised to them by those who went to promote them, in this case the NGO Friends of Sian Ka'an, and to generate the conditions for the decree in 2000. The proposal to establish the Xcalak PNA came from the friends of Sian Ka'an association, who as already mentioned by some authors are an institutionalized NGO dedicated to promoting this type of initiative by advertising that they did it "on behalf of the communities" or "at the request of the communities", for which they receive many funds and international awards. But these statements are questionable. By 2000, the regional tourism development project called "Costa Maya" began, promoted by FONATUR. This project proposed the detonation of 4 new towns, Nuevo Xcalak, Xahuaxol, Nuevo Mahahual and Pulticub, in the south of the state, in the region known as Costa Maya. The vision was to create low-intensity tourism supposedly promoting sustainable development.

He proposed to relocate the town of Xcalak, to the southern end of this area, as New Xcalak. Two kilometers to the west, towards the area called La Aguada. The Secretariat of Agrarian Reform authorized the government of the state of Quintana Roo to cede national land where the new population would be built, far from the coast. These lands would be operated by Fidecaribe (Fideicomiso Caleta Xel-ha y del Caribe) a state trust who assumed the responsibility of integrating – in theory – as partners of tourism development the owners of land, investors and the state government through the allocation of land and the control of investments in Costa Maya. Chapter 4 of the thesis of David Tello (2009) entitled "The process of management of the marine protected area as a montage for the mediation of interests" relates in a clear and timely manner, how the process of establishing the PNA and the media statements of Friends of Sian Ka'an, the State government and the foreign financiers of a reserve made "at the request of the community", it didn't happen quite like that. It is incredibly necessary to expose this myth because it has continued to be repeated to justify the creation of other PNAAs supposedly at the "request of the communities", that organizations such as Friends of Sian Ka'an placed themselves in key positions to channel resources and make decisions, appointing themselves representative of society and brandishing the case of Xcalak as one of their greatest achievements. It is mandatory to go step by step to make sure that it does not happen in other communities, in other areas. The version of the government promoters, academics and ONGA (Friends of Sian Ka'an) of how the decree of the Xcalak reserve was obtained is more or less like this:

1. An express request was made from the community to establish a conservation zone 2. A Community Committee was created with the support of Friends of Sian

Ka'an 3. The PNAA was decreed 4. Everyone Happy everafter

The truth is that ASK arrived, as its then Director, Juan Bezaury-Creel, said, when the opportunity was "served in silver tray". What was happening in Xcalak before the booking? Some 8 years before the decree, in 1992, the Andrés Quintana Roo cooperative that grouped the

fishermen of the community and some fishermen from the neighboring country of Belize, faced not only a need to have more catch quotas, but also a "New Fisheries Law" and its regulations, which canceled the "social sector" of the exclusive fishing rights of certain species that had been reserved for groups like them. This was a risk because the private sector had greater investment capacity than they did. By 1993 in addition to the pressure on fishing, the state government began to generate an investment project to develop the southern coastal area of the Mexican Caribbean with a comprehensive tourism project (PTI) for the Xcalak-Punta Herrero corridor. And then, as if that were not enough, the following year the Secretary of Fisheries disappeared and was integrated into the environment, creating the Secretariat of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries (SEMARPNA). It meant that from that moment on any issue to be dealt with with fishing included the environmental, which was already beginning to look conservationist and protectionist (neoliberal environmentalism). That same year, in 1994, the Costa Maya Master Plan was published. This was a mega tourism development that was supposedly "harmonious with nature", but whose proposal was very similar to the structure that Cancun and Riviera Maya had: a coastline available to developers and "service cities" where to put the workers of those resorts, who migrated by carts from other parts of the state and the country to live in poor conditions most of the time. For the area, "New Xcalak", a sustainable and low-density city, was proposed, but FONATUR, which promoted the project, had no idea what the concept of "low density" meant. A population of approximately 160 thousand inhabitants distributed in the 4 populations was proposed. Control of the project was granted to FIDECARIBE, a trust created by the state government to manage itself as a real estate and developer, which monitored the legality of everything, but ended up promoting the fractionation of lots, speculation, dispossession, caciquismo and land tenure conflicts, which were aggravated by the inflated prices reached by the coastal lots.

While this was happening, in Banco Chinchorro, which was the fishing area of the Xcalak fishing cooperative, its designation as a biosphere reserve was being prepared, with the participation of Friends of Sian Ka'an, and therefore, all the dynamics of fishing, permits and authorizations were under the control

of "the biologists", as they called the OFFICIALS of SEMARPNA and the technicians of Friends of Sian Ka'an who promoted this proposal. The exploitation areas were reorganized, the constitutive act of the cooperative was modified, Belizean members were excluded, fishermen from outside the community were accepted. And young people, seeing the proximity of tourism, began to bet on this activity. At that time, hanging off Chinchorro, Friends of Sian Ka'an took advantage of Chinchorro's planning actions with the cooperative to reach Xcalak. Taking advantage of the fact that the cooperative sought to secure and protect their rights and fishing sites, which they saw endangered with the tourist development that was going to compete for the same sites, with the growing idea that the town was going to be relocated away from the coast to give the big tourist capitals the coastal zone, it was easy to convince them that a PNA would protect them from any abuse. The only thing that Amigos de Sian Ka'an did was to accommodate the discourse of sustainable development linked to the establishment of the PNA, according to which the PNA was going to protect its historical economic activities, its way of life, its rights, from the negative impact that loomed over the community and the reef, product of the neoliberal tourism development that hovered over their heads and threatened their community, the beauty and richness of fishing and biodiversity of its reef. With all that, most of the community didn't trust environmentalists at all. As Tello puts it, "... the doubt of the inhabitants of Xcalak was to know which side the conservationists were on, because they were not sure of "pa' who is that the biologists chambean…”. The way of proceeding of Friends of Sian Ka'an, as an institutionalized ONGA, in that case and in the following decrees in which it was involved tends to generate distrust since its apparently "bottom up" approach was nothing more than a very well orchestrated simulation and media strategy. The distrust arose since the villagers were met with the news that "they had supposedly been the ones who had asked the government for a reservation," as ASK advertised, which was not true.

Contrary to what the publications of friends of Sian Ka'an and CONANP affirm, the starting point of the initiative was not the proposal of the

community materialized in the two writings addressed to the office of the governor of the State and the National Institute of Ecology. According to some villagers, as Tello describes in his research, before these requests ASK "worked" the community in a manipulative way, from which the ideas that resulted in the letters of the cooperative and the delegate of the town sent.

According to the local inhabitants, it was the Delegate of the community who was the first to be approached by "some people from Mexico". As the delegate was a fisherman he called the cooperative. These people who came from outside told them about the development that was coming, about the changes that were going to happen to the community and that staying as fishermen was going to stagnate them, that those who were going to arrive were going to steal their wealth. This caused panic in the cooperative and many families in the community... and then Friends of Sian Ka'an appeared. Tello's interviewees mention that in the group that came to talk to them at first was Juan Bezaury, that he was the one who spoke to them and recommended Friends of Sian Ka'an. The group of people who came from Mexico to create panic and urgency to create a reserve in Xcalak, was Friends of Sian Ka'an, or at least was the Director of that association and other people, and from there they convinced the community to let their staff in to "help" them. Friends of Sian Ka'an came to Xcalak taking advantage of funding from USAID, the U.S. government's funding agency, to promote coastal management, with the University of Rhode Island. They mixed the discourse of the coastal management model that brought the funds, to promote the PNA. Thus, the mix of information from a community strengthening initiative was handled in a way that justified the establishment of a PNA.

The villagers were represented as a community using the cooperative, but the cooperative, as a figure, did not represent the inhabitants of Xcalak. For some, the petition incorporated only the interests of a fraction of the fishermen's cooperative: the managers of the new generation. A small group was convinced that ASK appointed as representatives of the community, without true legitimacy and worked with them to promote their participatory design discourse.

The community committee was a similar story. Friends of Sian Ka'an took some members of the Cooperative (not the community) to visit the Hol Chan reserve and San Pedro Island in Belize where they were planted with the idea

of what they could achieve, which ended up convincing them to organize. So, as Tello puts it: "... But when the Community Committee was integrated, the community stopped mattering..." The agreements and new rules for the management and decisions, management, dialogue with other actors, validations and constructions, with respect to the protected natural area were built with the committee. This committee was composed of representatives from local productive and service sectors. There were four representatives plus the support staff, who served as members and bearers of the information that, through them, was reproduced in the rest of the local population. It was an "initiative of the people", but the title it carried, of protection and management, "came to those of Sian Ka'an's friends.” . Later in 1997 the University of Quintana Roo intervened to "adjust" the PNA's proposal to the Costa Maya Territorial Ecological Planning Program, which they were building as government consultants. The community was skeptical and reluctant to accept the modification of the polygonal that the committee had built, more if it came from the outside, so the rector of the then University of Quintana Roo went to the community to convince them that the Ordinance and the PNA could be integrated without causing them any unforeseen conflict. The rector of the University of Quintana Roo in that period was Efraín Villanueva Arcos, founding partner and recognized operator for the south of the state of the ONGA Amigos de Sian Ka'an itself. This promise, as has been demonstrated over the years, turned out to be false. In Xcalak, by 2006, the local actors with the greatest strength in the town were the members of the Andrés Quintana Roo fishing cooperative and the tourist cooperative; however, by this date there was a rivalry between these groups and the free fishermen, since they accuse each other of not respecting the closures and the areas assigned for fishing within the protected natural areas (Xcalak reefs and Banco Chinchorro). However, the main conflict detected was between local inhabitants and foreign investors, as well as between these two actors and the State, represented in this case by Fidecaribe, the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), which was manifested by the complaints by investors who accused Fidecaribe of extortion and several businessmen who complain that they are illegally collect fines from SEMARNAT.

The businessmen denounced that these actions were a form of pressure or reprisals for not being liked or openly complaining about the members of the environmental institution (SEMARNAT and / or CONANP), represented locally by the Directorate of the Chinchorro Reserves and Xcalak Reefs. The supposed order that PNA bring with them.

The same PNA that the community had helped build and was supposed to contribute to strengthening its sustainable development, according to Friends of Sian Ka'an, the ONGA that promoted it, sank them. The PNA decree did not stop the pollution, nor the deterioration of the reef, nor the deforestation of the mangrove (Mangrove deforestation agents in Mahahual-Xcalak, Quintana Roo, southeastern Mexico*). Xcalak didn't need a PNA, it needed a PDU, strengthen APIQROO's operating rules, and strengthen real community governance. In a recent telephone conversation with a senior SEMARNAT official (2021) he told me:

- We are dealing with the degradation quarrels that Xcalak suffers, it is a disaster. – he told me

- Doesn't it have a PNA that prevents all that? - I asked There was a silence on the other end of the phone line. There was no answer to my question.

Puerto Morelos Reefs National Park

The movement for the protection of the Puerto Morelos reef was more like a community social action in response to the loss of economic development opportunities – not the environment – by local inhabitants. Puerto Morelos is a clear example of the failure in the design of environmental policies in Mexico that are created without considering economic activities and the populations that depend on and live on sites and resources.

In 1995, a group of the community felt threatened their way of life (which was mainly fishing) with the forced migration of tourism service providers who had to move from Isla Mujeres and Cancun, specifically from the West Coast National Park of Isla Mujeres, Punta Cancun and Punta Nizúc, when the

creation of Natural Protected Areas, that is, the Addresses of the CONANP NAPs kicked them and excluded them, as it would be officially said, when in these sites they limited the number of providers (the famous load capacity that is restricted or expanded depending on the amount of money you have as a service provider), causing the 'expelled' to move to Puerto Morelos. The lack of sensitivity and the exclusivist vision of the policies of creation of PNA that sought to conserve one site, caused a serious problem in another, 36 kilometers to the south.

Local people called for the creation of the NAP and immediately repented and demanded the cancellation of the rules prohibiting access to certain areas, due to the restrictions imposed by zoning to protect the most ecologically rich areas. But there was no turning back. The interests that lead to the creation of a PNA, although it is said that it arises from the community, may have darker origins, as exemplified by Erika Cruz Coria and other authors in the research called: "The social confrontation for the coastal space: the configuration of tourist landscapes in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo". She explains that during the 1990s, a generalized trend emerged in the country with greater force due to the supposed conservation of natural resources, which in Puerto Morelos materialized through the creation of a protected natural area (PNA), whose seeming objective was to prevent external agents from continuing to deteriorate the resource, not to mention that they were taking economic advantage of it. But reality reveals that the creation of this NAP was due, above all, to the pressure exerted by actors who sought the generation of economic resources, as well as the political and administrative control of permits and concessions for the tourist use of the reef. They were told that as long as there was no government institution administering the resource, there would be no control. There was an urgency to decree the NAP, where have we read that before? Ah, yes! In the last three reservations we have described. Well, here they also created them and the hotel and restaurant entrepreneurs saw threatened the main attraction generated by the tourist influx of foreigners to their establishments, as well as their expansion to offer nautical services. For the municipal delegation, the illegal exploitation of the reef represented a leak of money for the town, which could well be used to improve the tourist infrastructure. On the other hand, the interest of local nautical service

providers was focused on the defense of their main source of employment, whose demand was being monopolized by external companies. The fishermen believed that with the creation of the NAP their fishing areas would be respected and even thought that they would have exclusive use over them. With the creation of the park, the coastal landscape of the coast began to transform, from being a space shared and managed by those who had historically been dedicated to fishing, it was divided into several areas of use that have caused clashes between the social actors that exploit them as a tourist attraction.

The movement was led by the municipal delegation in the town, the academics of the UNAM, specifically the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the UNAM who were the main promoters of the movement due to their knowledge regarding the reef and procedures for the constitution of the National Park. For three years they worked to establish the PNA, in an organized manner and directed by UNAM researchers and the Port delegate. But, as happened in other populations and in other NAPAs, community participation was limited to inviting direct users with economic interest in the resources in question to participate, that is, only the nautical and fishermen were integrated as if they were the community. The rest of the population was only informed through representatives.

In order to avoid conflicts, information was manipulated towards the other sectors of the population, something widely used by the members of the triad for their NAPAs, telling them that the NAP would bring benefit to all equally. A clear strategy of neoliberal environmentalism described by Zizumbo-Villarreal et al (2012) in a clear way: "... in this way people who had no way to integrate into a cooperative, due to lack of resources, were prevented from claiming something, they were made to believe that the movement was open and everyone could participate, when in reality it was seen that only a specific group could be part of it. Once the PNA was formally decreed, the problems began, which coincided with the realization of works to improve the community and encourage investment. The opinions of the population were divided and expressed their feelings that they were not informed and that their opinions were not represented...”. Another example described in the research specifies that various social clashes occurred, because a part of the population was excluded.

“…An example of this is that when the nautical cooperative was created, a call was opened to integrate, however, it was only possible for people with the economic resources to acquire a boat or condition those that were already available to the new requirements. This situation generated in a certain part of the population the feeling of having been excluded…” Not to change, the content of the Management Program was developed by personnel of the triad: Academics, ONGA and Government: staff of the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the UNAM, of the Dr. Alfredo Barrera Marín Botanical Garden, of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, of the nongovernmental environmental organizations of the locality (Lu'umK'aanab A.C., Yumbalam A.C., Sin Fronteras A.C), as well as state and federal authorities. With funding from the Mexican Fund for nature conservation. The demand on the part of the community became a legitimizing movement of the triad, which ended up controlling it, as agents external to the community (UNAM and the NGOs), and representatives of institutional organizations (FMCN, SEMARNAT, CONANP, SEMAR, SHCP, PROFEPA and SAGARPA), and the initial objectives were diverted, passing the control of the action to the institutions, mainly the government through CONANP.

These changes occurred in a discreet and gradual way, to the extent that currently, only a part of the population has noticed the loss of control over the resource. Puerto Morelos did not need a NAP, it needed, again, an adequate, operationally sustainable management of the landscape surrounding the body of water, of its BASIN, to update the PDU, its regulations of ecology, urban development, construction, a comprehensive territorial planning that avoided the displacement of people and families who lost their job opportunities due to the imposition of a NAP in another place, but above all to combat and punish corruption effectively.

Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve

At Banco Chinchorro, the PNA decree has brought them a series of conflicts that David M. Hoffman described perfectly in his article Conch, Cooperatives, and Conflict: Conservation and Resistance in the Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve (Hoffman, 2014). This author documented very fully the conflicts that the PNA created (and continues to create) for historical users. Hoffman describes the conflicts of the Banco Chinchorro fishing cooperative

with conservation authorities. First, cooperatives were being flattened by the biological and regulatory reality of the snail fishery. They had complied by reducing catch quotas, but the authorities failed to comply with increased surveillance. Second, the conservation regime at the Bank did not meet two mandates of the biosphere reserve model: (1) support for local livelihoods; and (2) the inclusion of resource users in the management of the reserve. Fishermen felt that undue pressure was being exerted on their use of the snail, while pachucheros or illegal fishermen continued to go largely "unnoticed", "unregulated" and were almost never sanctioned. The participation of fishermen in the decision-making of the reserve was also minimal at that time. They were largely excluded from decision-making regarding the reserve policies that were made at SEMARNAT's headquarters in the city of Cancun (and later Chetumal). After citing a case of arrest and imprisonment of a fisherman for snail extraction for self-consumption, a part of his cultural identity, but out of season imposed by the triad (ONGA, academics and government), the members of the fishing cooperative and the community in general were outraged by this event for several reasons. One, the fisherman was not commercially exploiting snail. The amount I had on board was obviously not destined for the black market, as there would be no real interest from buyers for such a small amount of snail. Two, many people cited that the authorities spent too much time behind small infractions like this, made by cooperative fishermen, just to give lessons from them. Meanwhile, the Pachucheros freely took what they wanted right under their noses or in collusion with the authorities, they specifically pointed to the Reserve Directorate. There were widespread accusations that both fisheries and conservation authorities were receiving payments (the pachocha) to ignore the continued extraction of snail destined for the black market. Finally, traditions are hard to break, and the thought that a cooperative fisherman couldn't return home from Chinchorro with a snail for the family blew up in their identity's face.

Tello (2009), in his study on Xcalak (the population where members of fishing cooperatives who fish in Chinchorro live) describes the decree process of the Chinchorro NAP, where he says that the process was more academic. The promoters, who were Friends of Sian Kaán, came to introduce the fishermen

to what was already going to be done. It was not a participatory construction, it was a tokenist simulation.

The same thing happened as in Xcalak, they created panic and risk to their way of life and presented them with the PNA as the only solution. But Banco Chinchorro did not need a NAP, it needed real support to the fishing cooperatives that historically took over the area and were the most interested in the resource and ecosystem being conserved. It required sanctioning the pachucheros (pachocheros), fighting corruption.

Tulum

In their research Marín-Marín, et al (2020) describe an atrocious scenario of dispossession and abuse of the state in favor of capital, against the ejidatarios of the Ejido Pino Suárez, located between the Biosphere Reserve of Sian Ka'an and the Arrecifes de Tulum National Park. Describes the strategies that the triads implement against the locals

“…As part of the need for expansion and reconfiguration of capital in the face of its crises, the intense search for areas to develop them productively has made it possible for territories, previously considered unproductive, to enter into a dynamic of commodification, causing problems around the management and access to resources. Thus, the various forms of valorization, management, access and control of nature and territory have created strong tensions between the State, capital and populations, since the different interests in relation to nature cause disputes above all between two main groups: the first, formed by the State and capital, which function as a complex network of power that dominates, among other ways, through policy-making; while the second includes the local inhabitants, who are the ones who, for the most part, manage the resources, aimed at their own subsistence… ” (Marín – Marín, et al, 2020)

The ejido Pino Suárez exemplifies the processes and collusion between the State and economic capital that protects the interests of those who can pay for neoliberal conservation, from which disputes and violent spoils by the State and capital are turned a deaf ear to the appropriation of the territories and resources of the communities. "... The network of actors that control the economy and politics is not enough, it is also necessary to control natural resources following the logic of capital

accumulation, which has led to an ecological imperialism…” (Bellamy & Clark, 2004, en Marín-Marín, 2020).

Already before, Arroyo, et al. (2013) analyzed the disarticulation of the vision and discourse of sustainable tourism with what had been happening in the coastal area of Tulum. Even with the existence of the NAP and different environmental laws, these were subject to the objectives of tourism, without solving the environmental problems such as the loss of mangroves, the pollution of the water table and its overexploitation of it by the resorts and the mega developments that were allowed to be built in the coastal zone, as well as the social problems that have generated a marked imbalance to favor and guarantee the provision of urban services for the residential complexes that house tourists with high purchasing power, without doing the same for the areas where local populations live, which lack these services. Tulum is an unsustainable destination.

Gustavo Marín Guardado speaking in this sense, says: "...it highlights the murky issues of tourism development and the relationships between politicians, businessmen and real estate speculators... However, not always those directly affected are private owners or agrarian community members, but in many cases they are forms of appropriation of nature reserves or beaches, which are usually public goods or governed by federal laws, where attempts are made to impose projects even when environmental laws prohibit their construction, or when local societies are against certain forms of development ..." (Tourism, globalization and local societies in the Yucatan

Peninsula, Mexico).

The most recent public scandal on this subject derives from the report "Tulum:

Land of ambitions" by journalist Lydia Cacho (2015) In this report she documents

"... Enforced disappearances, homicide, persecutions, threats, extortion... this is how it is possible to dispossess ejidatarios of the Riviera Maya of land. The dynamics of dispossession respond to an open war between corrupting businessmen and corrupt politicians, who have taken the agrarian courts hostage, corrupting judges at times. Tulum is a sample button of what the country is facing: a battle to disappear the ejidos in a context of institutional

pulverization in which business ambition is imposed on the law and sustainable development plans..." (Tulum, tierra de ambiciones.). Tulum did NOT needed a PNA, it needed to strengthen the capacities and governance of the locals, of the ejido, it required to really provide opportunities to the local population, strengthen local institutions, fight corruption.

Holbox

The PNA did not prevent, in fact it was used in favor of, that economic interests outside the ejidatarios stripped them of their patrimony (Isla Holbox: Crónica de un despojo); Caballero (2014), reported:

“…The Quintana Roo island of Holbox is the center of a conflict between ejidatarios and a consortium that aims to establish a high-flying tourism development there. Península Maya Developments has resorted to dirty plays: with deception it seized the ejido assembly and stripped the original holders of the land of agrarian rights and plots; with violence he prevented the community members from defending themselves from looting and to top it off he accused some of them of environmental crimes, when the hotel complex will be located in a protected natural area. And the authorities did not come to the aid of the

Holboxeños, but on the contrary…” In his research López-Santillán (2014), shows how Holbox continues in a spiral of environmental crisis, despite having a PNA, some journalistic notes reinforce what has been investigated: Holbox, the Mexican paradise threatened by pollution and lack of water, Profepa intervenes in Holbox for pollution of the island, Holbox, Caribbean paradise, at risk. In his 2017 news story, Darinka Rodríguez does an extensive investigation into how corruption works around the permits for boats that CONANP grants to service providers in Holbox. Quotes:

“…The tourist activities derived from swimming with the whale shark left a spill of 1.4 million dollars in 2014 alone, reason enough for foreign companies to compete against service providers in the area, who are in a constant fight for the permits granted by the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP). as well as the number of tourists who move to the protected area...

In another part of the island, "Ramón", who also offers walks with whale sharks or sells key chains and souvenirs to walkers, recognizes that this year tourism was much more abundant, but it is increasingly difficult for him to obtain permits from CONANP, because he accused that the director of the reserve gives preference to the largest companies ... Each permit is 30 thousand pesos, in addition to having the boat as requested by the authorities is very expensive. I and several of us here every year have to fight the permits…”

“…It has been very evident the monopoly of companies there that have about 30 permits, which is serious; the same company has many permits, it is a pity because it is a resource. If you go in a fishermen's boat, they are also in very good condition, where the locals take care of the whale shark," says Ramírez...”

“…For the 2016 whale shark swimming season, 160 permits were issued for 294 vessels in the area, according to data from the National Commission of

Protected Natural Areas (CONANP). The permits granted are constantly increasing, because, according to an investigation carried out by the environmental consultant Carlos Álvarez, in 2009 90 to 120 permits were granted... Ignacio Millán, Deputy Attorney General for Natural Resources of this agency (PROFEPA), indicated that 206 permits have been registered, in contradiction with what was indicated by CONANP, which ensures that there are 160…” In 2008, an investigation carried out by TNC (The Nature Conservancy) and CATIE (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza -Costa Rica-) (Cepeda et al, 2008), just before the declaration of a protected natural area in Holbox, identified a series of threats, in a SWOT analysis; 12 years after the whale shark biosphere reserve decree, the threats not only continue but have worsened. Most of the weaknesses and threats detected in that study have been studied and denounced in recent years by reporters and social researchers; as a phenomenon not only present, but growing.

Holbox did not need a PNA, it needed a PDU, municipal regulations, strengthening of municipal institutions in charge of public services, making an integral management of the entire island and the basin of influence on land, strengthening the governance of locals and eliminating corruption.

Manatee Sanctuary, Chetumal Bay

On October 24, 1996, the Sanctuary of manatee state reserve was decreed, with an area of 277,733,669 hectares. Total or partial territories of 5 ejidos, 4 human settlements: Laguna Guerrero, Raudales, La Fe, Calderas de Barlovento, and a large number of private properties and rural possessions remained within the polygon. In the case of the ejidos Tollocan and Calderas Barlovento, the entire territory was immersed in the polygon of the PNA. The management program was decreed on June 24, 2008, 12 years after the imposition of the PNA

As in the other cases, this NAP was established without consulting the owner communities, endorsed by the representation of ONGA and groups close to the triad, as the only self-described representatives of the communities. The proof is that the communities, especially those whose plots remained in the core areas, have been struggling to recover their productive areas, since the decree.

In the technical sheet of the PNA, published by the IBANQROO (Institute of Biodiversity and Natural Protected Areas of Quintana Roo), it is stated that 25 years after its decree, this binational ecosystem (shared with Belize) does not have a binational management agreement, but there is "the intention". That is, we have a PNA without management or protection, without environmental restrictions in 15 to 20% of the ecosystem, and the area of influence, to the south, because it is part of another country and has been like this for 25 years. There is no analysis of the residual impact and synergy of the contributions of environmental impacts from the territory of Belize, which are added to the problems of the system, while continuing to insist on criminalizing the communities to the north, on the Mexican side, to whom PNA are imposed, restrictions, are deprived of their areas of plots, they are conditioned and harassed, over-regulation and corruption are encouraged, while the intention is still to make an agreement of understanding after 25 years of calamities and that the NAP has served only to control the authorities for their benefit, and to obtain funds for NGOs and academics. Additionally, in this tab it is assumed that the site will become a Ramsar site.

“…Ramsar Site: Proposal to declare the Coastal Transversal Corridor Chetumal

Bay – Bacalar, which is working in coordination with the UNAM, ECOSUR and the municipalities of Bacalar and Othón P. Blanco …” This is in addition to the strategy of media insertion and manipulation of public opinion also used by other members of the triad, such as the case of the academic promoter of this initiative, Luisa Falcón, who, as we already mentioned for the Ramsar case study, publicly declared in May 2021 (7 years after the proposal for the Coastal Transversal Corridor Bahía de Chetumal –Bacalar, does not progress) that continues to manage a Ramsar site for the Bacalar complex – Chetumal Bay, as if it had the divine right to impose itself on the fate of thousands of families and hundreds of thousands of community territories, with the approval of the other members of the triad, the sectarian admiration of its defenders and followers and the disbelief of the locals.

This is a clear strategy of how the mechanisms of interaction between the members of the triad work, through the technical sheet of the NAP the proposal that they built unilaterally with the academics for public opinion and NGOs is "validated", despite the opposition of the community groups (which are not the same as the "organized civil society" of ONGA, that are part of the triad) and to demonstrate the support and approval in case of consultation of the national authority and the Ramsar Secretariat itself, pretending that there is a broad approval of the population, when it is not true. Other aspects highlighted in the PNA data sheet include: The existence of Studies and Projects that apparently seem participatory, but when the research is thoroughly reviewed are difficult statements to verify. For example, it is stated in the technical sheet that there is a project of Satellite Monitoring of the Daniel Manatee, with community participation. This last part of the declaration "with community participation", made it seem that communities are participating in satellite monitoring, assuming that the project is giving them tools and capabilities, empowering them technologically. When one reads the research project it is not clear whether community participation really involved this type of empowerment or was only limited to supporting the capture of the specimens or indicating whether they have been observed somewhere in the body of water. Mentions of studies and projects are widespread, without providing the specific data to corroborate what has been said. Thus, investigating to elucidate about the manatee satellite

monitoring project, we find studies from 2006 and 2007, which continued to be republished until 2014, without knowing for sure if the mention of IBANQROO, made around 2020 was related to these investigations or some more recent, but not enough data was provided to corroborate what was declared.

Other statements from studies and projects included: Water Quality Monitoring. Implementation of the Community Development Strategy. Community environmental monitoring through community guardians. Implementation of the Environmental Education Program. Without specifying periods, actors, financing or direct and indirect beneficiaries. Which presupposes not a tool of transparency, but more a self-justifying and media scheme so that it seems that something is happening permanently and with community impact, but it is not possible to verify it.

It also mentions the Regional Projects being worked on in the PNA: “…We are currently a priority and eligible area within the Marine Resources Conservation Project in Central America phase II, which is financed by the German Bank KfW and administered by the SAM Fund (MARFund). Priority area for the project Integrated Management of the Basin to the Reef of the Mesoamerican Reef System" (MAR2R), which was approved by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), executed by the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD) and implemented by WWF…” The project had a board of directors chaired, in 2017, by Lorenzo de Rosenzweig who was the Executive Director of the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature, A.C. (FMCN) from 1994 to 2019 – which as we mentioned before, also manages the FPNA (Fund of Protected Natural Areas). The FMCN statement on this project establishes two lines of work: 1) Consolidation of marine protected areas and 2) Promoting economic wellbeing and improving the quality of life of local populations. Only that the IBANQROO file does not clarify that the project ended in 2019, and in 2021 it is advertised as if it continued to be executed, without detailing that the period it covered was from 2014 to 2019; does not clarify that the projects were executed by ONGA, in the case of Mexico a different ONGA was chosen each year, as in the case of PRONATURA, Yucatan Peninsula for 2016, by government agencies or by research centers, and that the funds to "Promote economic well-being and improve the quality of life of local

populations", by either sub-fund administered by the FMCN, were used for training in monitoring, coral restoration, good practices in tourism, solid and liquid waste management, climate change, participatory management of MPAs, among others, but when the reports are read, these actions and results do not clarify how the strengthening of community groups occurred with them, nor how this type of strengthening contributed to "promoting economic wellbeing and improving the quality of life" of the locals. The funds of the proportional part for Mexico, from the sub-fund for the Conservation of Marine Resources in Central America, were basically used to equip laboratories, construction of surveillance booths, meetings, studies and consultancies, PROFEPA actions against fishermen, seizures, surveillance and training. Direct beneficiaries: ONGA, Government and Academics; the triad.

Chichankanab lagoon

Laguna Chichankanab is a body of water located in the ejido Dziuche, on the border of the State of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, has an area of 25,674.88 hectares (Phina, 2021) In March 2018 the ejido commissioner promoted an amparo against the government of the state of Quintana Roo because this instance decreed a protected natural area without notification, much less consent, of the ejido, owner of the lands legally, since its decree in 1936 and its extension in 1944.

The PNA decree was published on April 1, 2011, 4 days before thenGovernor Félix González Canto finished his term. The ejido had rejected the request of the state government and Friends of Sian Ka'an, to "donate" 14,026 hectares to create the state PNA, 54.6% of its ejido area. So Friends of Sian Ka'an and the state government proceeded unilaterally and decided to take them on their own. After all, Friends of Sian Ka'an had unilaterally processed a Ramsar Site for that surface a few years earlier.

In its note, the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry, states:

“…It also manages the entrance to the Chichankanab Lagoon, open to the public for the enjoyment of local families, being the only natural spa to which they have access; it is also visited by inhabitants of Yucatan towns, such as Peto,

Tekax and Oxkutzcab. For the above, the Ejido offers tourist services to visitors such as the use of palapas, and rental of kayaks and bicycles.

This body of water has a high ancestral value for the community of Dziuche, because it still celebrates rituals linked to the Mayan culture, such as "Las

Primicias", to give thanks to the deities for the rain and the sun, and renew the vows with nature, with Mother Earth, in which all the people participate, which guarantees the conservation of their traditions, and uses and customs. "It's a privilege to have the lagoon. To take care of it, we have rules such as

Ejido, which prohibit motorboats, so as not to affect the fauna and stromatolites; not a single tree is cut down 100 meters away, because we seek to take care, thinking about the next generations, "says the ejido authority.

The representatives of the Ejidal Commissariat stressed that behind the declaration of natural area, there is interest in taking away the lands and the management of the lagoon system, because there are documents in which "through puns", they restrict the use of resources within the polygon…” Although this declaration was clearly illegal, and demonstrates again the strategies of dispossession carried out by the promoters of PNA, it is also exemplified how they collude among themselves to exert pressure. For those who wonder why communities and locals are affected by the decrees of Protected Natural Areas, how these affect them and how a community with a protected natural area is controlled, even if its activities are not within the decreed polygon, it is exemplified below following the case of Dziuché. After the PNA decree, it took 2 years for the ejido to realize what had happened, as they themselves narrate, because SEMA authorities, members of Amigos de Sian Ka'an and other people arrived with a boat to tour the lagoon, supposedly because they were going to begin to see how to develop it, a disguised dispossession, as the community saw it. From there began the community's resistance against the state Secretary of the Environment and against Friends of Sian Ka'an. In that interim, and after the ejido had been carrying out forest use under management for decades, which had an UMA and had been receiving payment for environmental services for good management practices, in 2016 the SEMA prohibited the ejido from forest use (although it is the responsibility of SEMARNAT) while the Management Program of the Protected Natural Area was not in place. When the decree is reviewed, it is observed that this document establishes:

• Rule three: The administration, conservation, development and preservation of ecosystems and their elements are the responsibility of the

SEMA.

• Rule Four. SEMA and Amigos de Sian Ka'an will elaborate the Management

Program inviting other agencies and entities of the federal, state and municipal public administration, civil associations, research centers and institutions of higher education. Again, a private party where the owners of the territory were NOT considered: the ejido.

• Rule Nine: SEMA may enter into agreements to "concession the administration of the protected area". A simulated dispossession in the name of Conservation

The representatives of the Ejidal Commissariat claim, quotes the article of the CCMSS.

“…In that process, where are we? What we see is malice and viciousness to dispossess us of our lands and the lands of our children, for the benefit of others…” As we touched before, here the state government wanted to apply the "for the common good". According to the CCMSS article "... The Legal Department of the state government admitted the act of authority and subsequently denied it. Instead of thoroughly reviewing the case and admitting well-founded and motivated grievances and violations, the state government argued that the decree addresses the rights of "a larger population."… ” As we have argued above, for the case of Ramsar, Friends of Sian Ka'an had already incorporated Chichankanab Lagoon as a Ramsar Site in 2004. This ONGA and the state government proceeded to try to negotiate with the ejido "the donation" of just over half of its territory"in 2005, and when the ejido refused, they only proceeded to decree a PNA on their own, without consulting the owners. Although the suspension of the PNA decree was issued in 2018, and set a precedent, the file and the polygon of the Protected Natural Area Reserve STATE RESERVE LAGUNAR CHICHANKANAB SYSTEM continues to appear on the PAGE OF THE IBANQROO and the Environmental Log of SEMA.