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The Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism of Quintana Roo 2030
required to solve the "lack of regulation that existed in the Lagoon". In the section below called "The myth of the lack of regulation in the Bacalar lagoon", we show that this alleged lack of regulation is a completely false argument. So we explored the scenarios around that proposal, its proponents had, at this point, clear conflicts of interest; very well concealed by the pseudoenvironmentalist paraphernalia of "saving the lagoon". In reality, what was becoming increasingly clear, as we have seen up to this point, is how far from the legitimate struggles for the environment and the sensible and intuitive management that the locals had been carrying out for generations, for a true common good, for the environment; these promoters with their unfounded sentimental discourses, of partial vision, disjointed and almost irrational, were closer to a need for resources and consolidation of power over a site with a high value of negotiation at the political and economic level. We looked for the reasons why the protectionist proposal was insisted on in the body of water of the Bacalar Lagoon, supposedly to protect it from the pollution that tourism, and therefore, the development that the Mayan Train was going to cause; in part all the actors outside the triad agreed that a wellplanned and better executed development was required, so along with the fight against the promoters the community, made up of producer and grassroots organizations, have been involved in a struggle of local actors and communities where they insist on many occasions that the government should then hurry up and finish creating the instruments of urban planning, at the municipal level, to press for investment in infrastructure and services in the communities surrounding the body of water and the upper basin, from where the runoff and the main discharges that affected the Lagoon arrived, instead of focusing on protecting the body of water, receiver of impacts, which did not really solve the problem, as happened in other bodies of water that were now PNA in the state and whose pollution rates were scandalous, because the problem was around the upstream, not in the body of water. But the members of the triad turned a deaf ear.
Where did this new attempt come from?
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To be able to understand where the PROTUR proposal came from. This proposal and the proposals that have followed, it is worth reviewing what was happening at that time around in the state and national context. In 2016 the change of government in the state of Quintana Roo had happened and the institutional revolutionary party, which had governed the state in the last 40 years was no longer in power. The new government, a strange alliance between the National Action Party and the Party of the Democratic Revolution was in government (right and left), and presented its State Development Plan 2016 – 2022 where, in Axis I, program 4, Action 1.4.2 established the "Design and implement the Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism".
When one reads the document one notices that the basis of the Master Plan is made from a diagnosis, created by the Tourism sector, in this diagnosis five causes are delimited by which the tourism development model in Quintana Roo was not considered sufficiently competitive, and with which the need to create a Strategic Plan for Sustainable Tourism was justified. The causes of the non-sustainability of tourism included: 1. The tourism public sector governance model had not fully incorporated internationally validated sustainability criteria. 2. The tourism development model had generated environmental impacts on key ecosystems. 3. The tourism model favoured an unbalanced investment. 4. The tourism model did little to promote sustainability and innovation 5. The tourism model in the state had generated gaps in social inequality.
These "discoveries" that had already been denounced for decades by social researchers and local groups, were contradictory to what on multiple occasions the official actors of the State Environment Secretariat and CONANP had wielded. They insisted that their policy, instruments, governance and in general the entire PNA model that had been developing in Quintana Roo since the eighties under the pretext of tourism, had created sustainability, prevented or avoided environmental impacts, benefiting investment for all and contributing to social equality. But the official tourism sector denied those claims.
The key focal activity – tourism – around which the environmental sector created its instruments, or at least served as a pretext for it, did not comply,
more than thirty years after it began to be used as an excuse for control, with the basic guidelines of sustainability, had not even considered them. The most recent statement issued by the environmental sector in the state of Quintana Roo, announces that they have served to protect the ecosystems between the reserves (the case of the Calakmul and Sian Ka' an biological corridor), the truth is that in the last 30 years, the fragmentation of ecosystems in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, José María Morelos, Bacalar, Othón P. Blanco, Calakmul and Hopelchén, in that corridor, totals more than half a million hectares. An increase of more than 1000% since 1986.
To the communities the establishment of environmental management instruments was presented as a unique opportunity, to be able to get involved as beneficiaries of sustainable tourism development, that said the environment sector, the NGOs and the CONANP; people were told that establishing a PNA would benefit them with ecotourism, handicrafts and selling their products or generating jobs; but the tourism sector said, at the same time, that the tourism model (in Quintana Roo) privileged an unbalanced investment (See ahead, The myth of Tourism and tourism in PNA, pro poor). If we do the exercise of comparing both postures:
Environment says
Our environmental public sector governance model with protection instruments created around tourism, fully promotes internationally validated sustainability criteria.
That's what NAPAs and Ramsar sites are for, which promote sustainability and protect our natural resources and biodiversity around tourism activities (in response to which they were established, first of all).
Our instruments made it possible to protect ecosystems. Tourism says
Our tourism public sector governance model has not incorporated the internationally validated sustainability criteria that environment tells.
Although our tourism activities are developed in these areas (PNA, Ramsar sites) we have not integrated a sustainable environmental model.
Tourism development has generated environmental impacts (because it does not follow a sustainable model) in key ecosystems, for the same area of the NAPAs and Ramsar sites.
Our tools created in areas of tourist interest have benefited local communities. Tourism, even where there are PNA and Ramsar sites in Quintana Roo
The Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism of Quintana Roo 2030 (SEDETUR, 2021) stated in the diagnosis of its justification that tourism had generated various problems: a) Depletion of natural resources b) Short-term economy without a locally distributed economic spillover c) Decomposition of the social fabric in the state In the aspects of public policies and governance, they also exposed the weaknesses of the sector, which had definitely kept it unsustainable. These weaknesses included that existing laws and other regulatory guidelines for tourism in the state were outdated; that these guidelines were not articulated with sustainability commitments at the international level in which they were included in our country; that there was no investment from the public sector in tourism, this being the main activity in the state; that there was no followup or monitoring at the sectoral level in this sector so important for the entity, and that there was a lack of coordination between government institutions, civil society and the private sector and academia.
Part of the approaches to evaluate and determine the optimal level of growth for tourism activity in the program are related to the measurement of tourist load capacity (CST) of destinations or acceptable change limit (LCA). However, for more than 30 years it has been evaluated and it has been determined by numerous researchers that the CCT is not suitable to evaluate the capacity of a site to withstand a certain use, because the sites do NOT have a natural CCT. Later we will talk about the failure of foundation of the load capacity model for planning (See The myth of tourist carrying capacity). Another unverifiable assertion of the specific document that tourism, as an economic activity, has contributed to reducing poverty in our country, this point is also discussed later (See The myth of tourism and tourism in PNA, pro poor). Within the framework of the Sustainable Tourism Master Plan, it was established that this was a strategic instrument to implement a new model of tourism development, with criteria that could contribute to meeting the
Environment says Tourism says has widened social gaps and privileged an unbalanced investment.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Which implied that the previous model, which was used and pretexted by the NAPs and Ramsar sites, was NOT working. In this frame of reference, PROTUR emerged. PROTUR was now protected by the Secretary of Tourism in charge of Marisol Vanegas Pérez and the then Secretary of the Environment of the state of Quintana Roo, Alfredo Arellano Guillermo. The Consultant was Geoalternative, led by Silvana Ibarra Madrigal, who had been involved as a public official for the government of Jalisco in charge of Ramsar sites and at the same time as part of a consulting company for the government itself, and had the approval and open support of the municipality of Bacalar, through the Director of Municipal Ecology, Romel Cano Alvarez, who became actively involved.
As an additional comment, the same actors that promoted PROTUR built another parallel instrument in 2019: Water Sensitive Territory in Quintana Roo (also built with Geoalternative) according to the then Secretary of environment of Quintana Roo, it was a planning scheme based on the underground aquifer, which flowed into the lagoon of the seven colors, which is the basis of the tourist development of the municipality and they intended to include it in the regulations. The document specified that some guidelines of water-sensitive territories were being incorporated into the Territorial Planning of Bacalar, which made it an innovative planning method, which would be setting an example at the state level and mainly for the Yucatan Peninsula. But the Territorial Ecological Planning of Bacalar was still under review (since 2011), the Urban Development Program (PDU) was being built since the foundation of the municipality, almost 10 years before, and was not being built in a real participatory way, but through a cabinet consultancy, and despite all the demands of the community to update this instrument, nor had it produced a revision and a decree. There were many contradictions in the way it was handled and many procedural shortcomings of PROTUR. The justification for PROTUR is quoted from page 36 of the document itself:
“…Justification of PROTUR
According to the analysis of the natural elements of the Bacalar Lagoon, we can indicate that it is unique, and its biocultural landscape has fascinated tourism, but in an accelerated way, with lack of order. The current socio-environmental problems also limit the possibilities of achieving a sustainable territory. That is why this PROTUR derives from the urgency of territorial planning and coordination between the social sectors. The socio-environmental problem puts at risk the biocultural heritage, being indispensable a program of public use according to the method of Acceptable Change Limit and Tourist Load
Capacity…” It sounded very ambitious, pertinent and fair, on paper. In reality, it did not meet any of the expectations with which it was sold to public opinion. The problem arises when the document is analyzed in detail. The serious thing is that it was used validated by the state government to try to make it work as a regulatory / governing document of the activities in the Bacalar Lagoon. It had two elements: a base document and a zoning map (in the document and an interactive one). Reviewing carefully we came across many unfounded approaches and assertions, which raised many doubts about their true intention and scope. The paper argues that 4 criteria were used to determine the key elements for zoning: 1) Ecological conditions, 2) Access prevalence, 3) Duration of impacts, and 4) Visibility of impacts. They mention having developed the methodology, of acceptable change limit and tourist carrying capacity and range of recreational opportunities, and having carried them out in a participatory manner. But it didn't happen that way. We will review four points of PROTUR that demonstrate what "is wrong" with PROTUR and in general with most of the instruments created from the vision of the triad, which end up being easily demolished because they lack the foundation that is consolidated with a real and solid technical-community work. The four points that are a disaster with PROTUR include: 1. Participatory construction simulation, 2. The inexplicable calculation of carrying capacity and acceptable change limit, 3. The unexplained zoning criteria and 4. The "innovative" proposals that really put at risk the lagoon and the safety of the users.
