I wondered how long it would take for this news to be discussed on ScubaBoard. It took much longer than I thought it would for someone to post about it.
Here is the info:
The
Consejo Asesor del Parque Marino voted unanimously to close down the southern restricted area of the Cozumel National Underwater Park for three months, starting on October 15, 2019. At the end of the three-month period, the situation will be re-evaluated. They may lift the ban then, they may extend it, or they may make it a three-month-long ban that takes place yearly at this time. Too early to tell yet.
The southern restricted area is the orange section of the map shown below. The solid band of orange is the
“Talud Insular” (island shelf zone) and the stippled orange area is the
“Zona Arreficial” (reef zone). The area to be closed (clockwise from southeast to southwest) includes: El Islote, Punta Celarain, Maracaibo Reef, Chunchaka’ab Reef, Punta Sur, Colombia Reef, El Cielo and the parts of Palancar Reef that are
south from the concrete pier at Palancar Beach. That is the pier just south from Playa Palancar Beach Club. The latitude and longitude of the pier/demarcation line starting point on shore is 20°21'5.60"N, 87° 1'19.63"W. The north border of the southern restricted zone runs due west from that point.
They are closing it down due to what they call an “emergency situation” which includes, but is not limited to:
1. The lack of park guarda-parques (park rangers) due to retirements
2. The chronic lack of funding for hiring park rangers
3. The overwhelming number of illegal dive operations taking divers to the park. By illegal, they mean dive operations that don’t have park permits and/or are not a tax-paying Mexican business, but are “working under the table”, often with illegal immigrants (Yep, they have lots of those in Mexico, too!) and are basically ignoring park rules.
4. The large number of
legal operators who still allow their divers to:
A. Wear gloves
B: Carry spears
C. Carry metal prods
D. Touch the coral
E. Drag their fins on the coral
F. Let their dangles bang the coral
G. Hold onto coral to keep steady for photograph
5. The huge number of operators (legal and illegal) that are taking tourists to El Cielo and allowing them to handle the starfish
6. The coral disease that is killing the reefs
7. The sewage runoff from beach clubs and hotels
The rules of the park have always allowed for re-evaluations of the use/abuse of the restricted areas and for their temporary or permanent closure to give them a chance to recoup from overuse. Annex 1, Administrative Rules Section, part 4 of SEMARNAP’s rules for the park administration says:
Zona I. Uso Restringido Esta zona abarca sitios que por sus condiciones oceanográficas, interacción con habitats adyacentes (como manglares y lagunas costeras), así como por su relevancia como reservorio genético y aporte de propágulos (etapas larvarias, alevines, juveniles, etc.) deben permanecer en el estado más prístino, por lo cual únicamente se permitirán actividades compatibles con las prioridades de conservación y ecoturismo, con acceso restringido en espacio, tiempo y número de visitantes. Con base en estudios científicos específicos, estas áreas podrán ser cerradas al acceso del público en general durante el tiempo que la Secretaría de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca lo determine.
The “restricted southern area” is a special area of the park with special rules, as outlined in the paragraph above. Recent studies by UNAM indicated it should be closed for a while to see if it can regenerate from the damage it has sustained, as well as the pressure it is undergoing from the coral disease that has damaged 40% to 70% of Paradise Reef and other reefs to lesser extents.
I strongly suspect, however, that if enough ruckus is made over this (and I don’t mean rants posted on ScubaBoard, which won’t be of any use at all) that it causes the “powers that be” in Mexico City to allow for more of the money collected by the Cozumel Reef Park (i.e., wrist band $) to flow
back to Cozumel so that they could hire enough guarda-parques (rangers), the ban will be lifted. As I posted here on ScubaBoard before, all the money Cozumel collects from divers goes straight to Mexico City and then gets spread out over
all national parks and protected areas. Cozumel collects and sends in much, much more money than is sent back to the island for park operating expenses.
It is a national park. It is a national, natural resource. It should be protected. Operators with no park permits are carrying hundreds of divers each month into the park to do what they will, with no repercussions. Some operators WITH permits are also turning a blind-eye to what their paying customers do to the reef and the sea life in the park.
How will they keep all operators out of that part of the park during the ban when they couldn’t keep the just the un-permitted people out the whole park before the ban? I know that the port captain, the police, and the navy were involved in the meeting that resulted in the ban. I imagine it will be easier for the Mexican Navy to enforce a total ban on the southern part than it is for a couple of guarda-parque boats to cover the whole park checking the documents of as many boats as they can in the morning dive session.
There are plenty of other reefs in the park north of the restricted area that will remain open to diving and water sports. There are plenty of great dive operations on Cozumel. This effort to work out the problems that have been plaguing the Reef Park should not stop anyone from coming down to Cozumel and having a great dive vacation.
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In other news, the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) announced that it has suspended the sale of properties at the Cozumel Fonatur marina, after being unable to sell nearly three-quarters of them. Fonatur’s legal director said the agency “will change its development plan for the marina, retaining ownership of the land while allowing (I read ‘hoping’) investors to build businesses, including hotels, malls, residential developments and restaurants.”