Participatory construction simulation

Participatory construction simulation

The diagnosis, at first, is only a count of statistics provided by the Port Captaincy for June 2019 and concludes with data from three elements: activities, infrastructure and vessels. Taking into consideration that the diagnosis should be based on and refer to the Bacalar Lagoon, the body of water, it is strange how the list of activities carried out in the lagoon begins with the visit to archaeological and cultural zones, includes rental of bicycles and scooters, rest in spa and yoga, rental of cabins, among other tourist activities. Which already indicates from the outset an unfocused view of the object of the study. The social actors who were invited to know it (and indirectly to validate it) were presented with the discourse that this was a voluntary, harmless instrument, of common agreement that was going to be set in motion with the will of all, in response to a very serious crisis that required a solidary, immediate community action; a harmless regulation to "save the lagoon", very much in the style of the triad with Ramsar. But the same promoters of the triad in other FORUMS of ONGA and academics, specifically the coordinator of the consultancy, Silvana Ibarra, stipulated something else as the objective of PROTUR, told them that they were going to build a public policy instrument that was possible to convert into a normative provision. From the wishes, projects of society, the advice and facilitation of people who study the natural system and nature tourism. A double discourse and a blatant discursive manipulation. How were they going to do it? Ibarra stipulated that between February and March 2019, he said in his invitation, there would be 4 events, with various topics to share, in addition to office work, management and some fieldwork for verification of key points. It referred to 3 workshops and a seminar. The first was to be for mapping of tourist elements and SWOT analysis to be carried out in the communities of Buenavista and Bacalar; the second was to outline nature tourism activities and strategies to reduce socio-environmental impacts, to be carried out in the same communities; the third was on visitor management strategies, and finally a Seminar Reducing the impacts of tourism in the lagoon. In the end what was obtained was a brief bibliographic review, a mapping of zoning of the Lagoon, based on the map by specific consultations, without a true justification of the selection criterion of key informants, a

procedure that is repeated by the promoters of PNA: their informants and participants are their group of "cuates" or groups related to the interests or discourse of the triad, mostly. One of the elements that were most repeated as justification for wanting to impose this instrument is that it had been built in a participatory and consensual manner, and that it had been validated by local actors, validated by the communities of the Bacalar lagoon area. But once again it was the communities that opposed its establishment. This made it seem that the communities were falling into intransigence. However, the opposition, as can already be elucidated in this document, came from solid arguments for not accepting the impositions of the triad, impositions built in a simulated way with objectives far removed from environmental conservation, now in PROTUR.

Taking up the example of what happened in the PNA of Xcalak (Tello, 2009), the concept of community of PROTUR was personified in the simplistic representation of a group of people who, the majority, were there because they shared common interests of environmental groups, academics or government; the group was part of the community but was NOT representative of the community. Worse, they were part of a minuscule portion of the communities in the Laguna area, selected for affinity of ideas. If we talk about participatory processes, where planning instruments like this are designed, there are two things that do not appear in PROTUR: how the participants were selected (based on very specific information needs) and how the information from the basic diagnosis/analysis was linked to build the rest of the instrument. Since it was trying to build an environmental policy instrument for the body of water, based on local knowledge, an essential issue in this type of research necessarily has to do with the means by which local experts are identified and summoned. And by experts I mean experienced people, not triad scholars. From the outset, the assumption of participatory construction of PROTUR loses all validity because it was not built with the consideration of all possible actors who had to participate and instead a quick exercise was made trying to pretend and justify the participatory aspect with nearby groups, without clear selection criteria.

It was not a social gathering, nor was it an exercise in wishes and dreams, it was an exercise in planning tourism activities, mainly nautical tourism, given the objective of the instrument, established from the basis of the understanding of the environmental system, but also of the dynamics of use of the lagoon, to establish the bases of a regulatory instrument (a regulation). Experiential experience was required and not only academic-scientific knowledge of the cabinet; but in addition, it was required a broad knowledge of the system with experience in situ, to characterize it from that perspective, to know parameters such as depth-des, seasonal variability, critical areas, navigation strategies, type of access to the areas, potential risks, human interaction in the various activities, hot spots, navigation strategies according to the types of boat, to understand how the system that was intended to regulate was conceived. In Bacalar, if you know how to work with the methodologies of identification of key informants it is easy to elucidate that this information is held by the captains of boats and the historical users of the lagoon, as was done with the proposal of Rule 23 of the APIQROO operations regulations proposed by the Community Council of the Bacalar Lagoon Basin (CONCCLAB), described in the APIQROO chapter.

At PROTUR, many of the procedures they used to validate the product were, with no other way of defining it, "simulated". We obtained this perspective of the simulation from the beginning of the analysis of the instrument, with the answers, product of direct interviews with some of the actors who were summoned to participate in these workshops and of the opinion on the behavior and procedure especially of Silvana Ibarra, coordinator of the consultancy, during the alleged consultations, with which we gave ourselves an idea of how the supposed "participatory construction" took place.

“…we were invited to hear a proposal and when we gave opinions Silvana did not like it if we did not agree and forcibly wanted us to accept what she said, I better end up just listening, because in the end she did what she wanted…”

Joaquin Calderon. Member of the cooperative of Nautical Service Providers

It is important at this point to make the observation that some of those involved appear in the PROTUR document as part of the core team of logistics convening, management and facilitation of workshops, but when they were interviewed to obtain information on the form of integration and

governance of said team, its agenda and its participatory work strategy, these social actors who were pointed out by Silvana Ibarra as part of her core work team... they didn't know what we were talking about. They clarified that, like the rest of the actors, they attended as guests but had not been informed that they were part of a work team, logistics or promotion of any instrument, and never acted as such.

Obviously the document lacks the basis of participatory design, and had been presented at this point in a blatantly deceitful manner. It was logical that when he came to the opportunity to present it to the members of the communities there would have been annoyances and attempts to discuss what was proposed, but they were not given an opportunity.

“…Well, if they invited us to a presentation, of an idea they had... but they didn't tell us they were going to do one thing like a reservation... they were like their ideas and I went and said ah, well it's okay to come and listen to that idea they have... but that's it.”

Luis Chimal Balam. President of the Ejido Commissariat of the Bacalar ejido 2018 – 2021.

In terms of percentage of participation, the social sector convened only included 4 actors, 7% of the total sample, while tourism service providers was 33%. 300 participants are mentioned, but from the talk with the representatives of the ejidos Bacalar and Aarón Merino (50% of the social actors who attended) it was found that the participation was not informed, and only one or two representatives attended one or two calls. When one reviews the PROTUR document the first thing that emerges clearly is that it tried to solve the deficiency of call and participation Including volunteers and students, and trying to give more formality to the structure, placing some of the attendees as if they had been part of the core team, when they were only assistants.

At all times the process was manipulated and directed, and sometimes led by the municipality of Bacalar, which geographically only has interference in approximately 30% of the entire system. The participation of the municipality of Othón P. Blanco was ignored, which has interference in the remaining 70%. In conclusion, like-minded people and people "necessary" to demonstrate that other sectors of the population had been taken into account in a "fair" manner were invited to the meetings and workshops. A tokenist strategy to simulate participation. But the exercises were directed, manipulated, and the attendees