Cabo Pulmo is a coral reef in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. It’s home to a huge variety of life including lots of different fishes, crustaceans, molluscs, birds and marine mammals, many of which are globally at risk. Twenty years ago, this pristine area was threatened by overfishing and irresponsible tourism, but the local communities decided to organize to bring about great change to benefit both local people and the environment.
Thanks to people power, in 1995 Cabo Pulmo was declared a Natural Protected Area under Mexican law. Since then, numbers of fish have increased by more than 400% – it’s now like a reef that has never been fished.
The recovery of this amazing reef has been a huge successful story, due to the legal protections but also thanks to the close involvement of nearby communities, who even voluntarily stopped their fishing activities to support the environmental protection of this unique ecosystem. Now, the locals promote sustainable tourist activities such as whale, turtle and shark watching, as well as diving for small groups of visitors.
But this local community isn’t finished yet with standing up for the oceans. Over the years, the beauty of this area has attracted the interests of big companies, such as Hansa Urbana, which in 2008 tried to develop a huge, new tourist complex named “Cabo Cortés” in an area close to Cabo Pulmo. This project was a threat to the reef and its wildlife on lots of different fronts: sewage, oil leaking from boats, destruction of coastal dunes, high demand for freshwater, etc.
Local communities worked together with organizations like Greenpeace to put pressure on local and federal governments to demand the cancellation of Cabo Cortés: 220,000 citizens signed the petition launched by Greenpeace Mexico to stop this mega project. Finally, in 2012, the government agreed to these demands and cancelled the project.
This was a huge victory and reflects the importance of defending our ocean sanctuaries, which are vital to protecting our seas and the rich biodiversity that lives there. Once again, we saw what people power can do, when lots of us stand together against greedy companies to protect marine life.
Ocean sanctuaries like Cabo Pulmo have been particularly successful in protecting iconic biodiversity, improving fisheries and benefitting local economies and communities. We need to protect at least 30% of our oceans from damaging human activities, such as industrial fishing, oil drilling and deepwater mining, with a network of oceans sanctuaries. This would be a huge step for the recovery of ocean ecosystems, and for the wellbeing of our whole blue planet.
Ornela Garelli is an Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace Mexico.
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