SANTA ROSALILLITA, Mexico -This remote fishing village on a wind-swept point has no electricity, no running water and not a single paved road.
But it will have a marina for yachts courtesy of Mexican authorities who are shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to lure U.S. boat owners to the rugged coast of the Baja California peninsula.
Charles Moore, a marine researcher from Long Beach,
saves a live squid washed up on the beach by mud
coming from construction.
Construction crews are hauling boulders to form stone jetties that jut out from shore at Santa Rosalillita like giant parentheses shrouded in coastal fog. The new marina, 410 miles south of the U.S. Mexico border, will be the first stage in Escalera Nautica, a proposed network of 22 new and upgraded ports on the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez.
If all goes according to plan, the number of pleasure boaters who cruise these waters would grow nearly tenfold to 76,400 by 2010 as the network of marinas, who cruise these waters would grow nearly tenfold to 76,400 by 2010 as the network of marinas, hotels and other amenities, make it easier to travel to and from Mexico in a yacht, according to government projections.
"This project will create enormous amounts of development and obviously a lot of jobs," said Alejandro Moreno, tourism secretary of Baja California Norte, one of the peninsula's two states. "It's a great opportunity."
Not everyone shares his enthusiasm.
Environmental groups fear large-scale development will compromise a unique desert and coastal ecosystem that is prized by surfers, sport fishermen, kayakers and others for its rugged beauty.
'This type of megaproject is totally inappropriate for this region," said Patricia Martinez, director of Pro Esteros, a wetlands advocacy group in the port city of Ensenada. "There is no need for so many marinas, especially in such environmentally sensitive areas."
Some of the most biting criticism comes from American yacht owners, the project's target market.
"The numbers are absolutely ridiculous, pure fantasy," said Richard Spindler, founder of an annual San Diego-to-Cabo San Lucas sailing event and editor of sailing magazine Latitude 38. "They would have to empty every marina in California to get 75,000 boats."
Sailors argue that Mexico would be better served by adding new berths to the marina on the Sea of Cortez in the city of La Paz, which can get crowded in winter and early spring.
Still, many residents of remote Baja California villages like Santa Rosalillita welcome Escalera Nautica or anything else that would bring basic services and ease their dependence on boom-and-bust fishing.
"If it brings water, electricity and jobs, it will be a good thing," 40-year-old fisherman Armando Uribe said as he loaded his truck after a night of trying to catch halibut and shark in the Pacific.
In some places, where fisheries have collapsed from overuse, the benefits of Escalera Nautica are considered obvious.
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"The lobster is gone. The abalone is gone. All we have left is tourism," said Anita Grosso de Espinosa, a 94-year-old restaurant owner in El Rosario, along Baja's main highway.
Mexico's federal tourism agency, which is responsible for such glitzy resorts as Cancun and Ixtapa, bills Escalera Nautica as the country's largest tourism project in 20 years.
Government agencies have budgeted $360 million over the next six years - including $8 million for Santa Rosalillita - and hope to attract more than twice as much in private investment for hotels, restaurants and other amenities, officials said.
The principal behind Escalera Nautica, which translates as nautical staircase or ladder, is that better infrastructure will induce more sailors to explore the peninsula, which runs 1,000 miles from the border city of Tijuana to the resort of Cabo San Lucas, and to venture to mainland destinations such as Mazatlan or Guaymas.
Authorities plan to build 10 new marinas and expand five more to complement the seven that already exist in the region.
Of the new marinas, Santa Rosalillita is furthest along in construction. It has already caused significant beach erosion while killing marine life by stirring up mud in the village's small bay, said Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach.
Moore, who was conducting research on the project this month from his catamaran anchored off the beach at Santa Rosalillita, questions whether many would visit the remote village. It has no hotel, one restaurant and is only accessible by a spine-jarring dirt road.
"This is not a tourist resort. This is a windy promontory that's almost always foggy and cold," Moore said as he stood on the shore beside the new jetty.
Government backers assert that hotels and other amenities, largely funded by private investors, will come as the project progresses. They also said they will take steps to protect the environment.
Such assurances don't convince Mexican and U.S. environmentalists who hope to derail Escalera Nautica or at least limit its scope.
Opponents have succeeded in persuading Mexico to halt construction of a new road in a nature preserve until further environmental studies are completed. The shiny blacktop, surrounded by rare species of cactus, comes to an abrupt end in the desert east of Santa Rosalillita.
Environmental groups also persuaded Mexico to reduce the number of proposed berths to 100 from 1,800 in the tiny Sea of Cortez village of Bahia de Los Angeles, said Serge Dedina, director of Wildcoast, a U.S. organization that seeks to track and protect the endangered sea turtles that feed in the waters off Baja California.
Isla Espiritu Santo, Mexico -- When a half-dozen concrete bungalows popped up almost overnight on this otherwise pristine island in the Sea of Cortes three years ago, environmentalists sounded a Mayday.
First they filed suit, and a judge ordered the houses destroyed. Then they raised almost $3 million to buy out all land claims to the 38-square-mile island. Now they are donating it to the state. The government plans to maintain the island as a haven for hikers and snorkelers, closing it permanently to development.
The project to preserve Isla Espiritu Santo -- an uninhabited island of craggy mountains, hidden coves of emerald green shallows and underwater clouds of blue and yellow angelfish -- is being hailed as a landmark victory for the environment and philanthropy.
"This has never been done before. It's very important because it opens a whole new model of how to do conservation," said Victor Lichtinger, Mexico's environment minister. "Because of this, we could have this kind of private conservation in many, many places in Mexico."
As the Mexican environmental movement matures, pledging to prevent a repeat of the overdevelopment of places such as Cancun and Acapulco, it is moving into high gear to protect the still-pristine Sea of Cortes.
RICH WITH SPECIES
The 800-mile-long sea, between the Baja Peninsula and mainland Mexico, is home
to one of the world's richest collections of whales, dolphins, manta rays,
sea turtles, birds and corals. The luminous blue and green waters are home to more than 60 kinds of sharks, including hammerheads, whales, leopards and guitars.
Environmentalists are fighting many battles with others who have differing ideas about the future of this bountiful but fragile area. Commercial fishermen want greater access. Private landowners on another island want to build hotels and an airstrip. The government wants to build new marinas to attract more tourism.
The outcome of these struggles will shape the future of one of Mexico's most remarkable natural resources. "There is nothing like this in the world, and we could lose it," said Manuel Arango, a leading Mexican businessman and the key financial backer of the drive to preserve this island just off the port city of La Paz.
The most immediate fight, one in which environmentalists and people in the tourism industry are threatening large-scale demonstrations, is over new commercial fishing laws that opponents say would quickly turn the Sea of Cortes into a "dead sea."
Commercial shark boats are required by law to stay at least 50 miles off shore. That bans them from the Sea of Cortes, which is a little more than 100 miles across at its widest point.
FISHING EXPANDED
Officials acknowledge that thousands of fishermen ignore the law and many
species are in severe decline because of poaching. But now a new federal law
will legalize much of that. Under the law, which goes into effect Sept. 12,
commercial shark boats -- many of them large ships from Japan and Spain -- will
hunt their prey up to a limit about a half-mile from shore.
Lichtinger and environmentalists said legalizing such heavy-duty commercial fishing will be extremely damaging. They said hooks intended for sharks would also capture sea lions, dolphins and sea turtles and damage delicate coral reef systems.
"We do not like it," said Lichtinger, the environment minister. "We were not fully consulted about this. And we and the Tourism Ministry are asking for suspension of the new regulations."
Another high-ranking official, who asked not to be identified, said the new regulations sparked an angry behind-the-scenes reaction within the Mexican government.
"They were either smoking something or they were paid off," the official said of those who drafted the law. "This is absolutely idiotic."
"What good is preserving islands if the Sea of Cortes is a dead sea?" said Roberto Van Wormer, tourism director for the state of Baja California Sur, which encompasses the southern half of the Baja Peninsula.
Van Wormer said he and other opponents of the new fishing law plan to disrupt a meeting in October of more than 20 world leaders, including President Bush, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in Los Cabos, at the tip of the Baja Peninsula.
ISLAND DEVELOPMENT
At the same time, environmentalists are opposing the development of Isla San
Jose, just 20 miles north of Isla Espiritu Santo. The island's private owners
want to build at least six hotels, 150 private homes, an airstrip and a marina
for cruise ships on the island. It would be the only large development on any of
the islands in the Sea of Cortes, most of which are uninhabited except for a few
temporary fishing shacks.
The federal government says development is illegal because of a 1978 law that declared all islands in the Sea of Cortes a natural preserve and banned development on them. But the island's owners say that law infringes on their private property rights; they filed suit last month challenging the law.
The owners are grandchildren of Abelardo L. Rodriguez, who was Mexico's president from 1932 to 1934. They note that the cash-strapped state and local governments support their project as a reasonable balance of preservation and development. They say responsible development generates revenue that can be used to help protect the environment, as is done in many national parks in the United States.
"What we want to do is generate jobs and pay for conservation," said Fernando Rodriguez, 50, a La Paz businessman.
TOURISM PLAN
Meanwhile, the government is proposing to become the largest developer in the
Sea of Cortes with its "Nautical Steps" program, the country's biggest
proposed tourism development in two decades. The plan calls for building or
upgrading 24 ports along 2,500 miles of coastline, including the entire shore of
the Sea of Cortes, to attract millions of new tourists and billions of dollars
in revenue. Environmentalists call the plan a "monster" that would
promote unchecked development.
President Vicente Fox, in an interview last week, said the "first priority" of the Nautical Steps development is "sustainability and protection" of the Sea of Cortes. But he said he wants to strike a balance that would allow "responsible people" to engage in economic development. He said it would be similar to the ways that New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona promote environmentally sound tourism.
"The Sea of Cortes is a treasure that we want to conserve, and that we want to improve," Fox said.
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