A constant struggle to protect the City forest of Mazatlán

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Tourism and business project ends the main lung of the city of Mazatlán, warns defender of green areas

Mazatlan, Sinaloa.- Emma Rodriguez Choreño participate in the first stage of reforestation of the City Forest over 20 years ago as part of the group of parents of one of the elementary schools that made the inetiative.

She comments that many families and citizens from Mazatlan came to plant trees, including coconut palms, tabachines, eucalyptus, amapas, banana groves, pinnules, capiros, lemon trees, cacti, bougainvillea and ornamental plants, adding to the mangroves, tulares and thorny bushes that already existed on the shores of the Camarón lagoon.

That place, owned by the Airport and Auxiliary Services that was donated by the federal government to the municipality for recreational purposes, became the main lung of the city of Mazatlán and one of the favorite spaces for locals and visitors to go on a picnic in family, carry out sports activities or walk along its trails, in contact with nature.

Remember that on weekdays or weekends, people visited the place to make a barbecue, celebrate birthdays, make a piñata or simply take the boys and girls to run among the trees, contemplating the lagoon, ride the little train, They went up to the amusement rides or the jumpers.

However, little by little and over the years, urban development engulfed it to the point of suffocating it. The cement constructions have ruined the conservation and preservation of the City Forest, despite the constant struggle of environmentalists and ecologists so that the Camarón lagoon does not continue to be filled, which represents a natural space not only for flora and fauna of the region but for the birds that migrate to this place for their reproduction.

She assures that the Mazatlán Central Park project collapsed the flora and fauna of the place.

“I was one of the mothers who reforested that forest 20 years ago and with sadness, I saw that they calcined it three times, there were thousands of species of both animals and plants that were killed, mother nature was murdered, it was a massive ecocide,” she described.

COLLAPSE AND ECOCIDE

Rodríguez Choreño refers that since the construction of an Electrical Substation on one side of the lagoon and the Aquarium was approved, the collapse and ecocide were coming, then the building of the Union of Education Workers, section 80, a field would come multipurpose, a skate park, courts and outdoor gyms, and more recently, Bahía Street or Paseo Mazatlán calzada, and finally the Central Park and the New Aquarium, with an area of ​​32.5 hectares, which covers almost everything the polygon of the Forest and the lagoon of the Camarón.

“As women in struggle, we have defended this project since the Electrical Substation was installed with the intention of feeding electricity to the tourism development project, according to them, which had already been ‘probing’ the Mexican Republic more or less since 2007”, she pointed.

She comments that in 2012, in the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, and with the intervention and complacency of the mayor and councilmen, in turn, the automotive companies corridor was approved, then the hotel corridor in front of Del Mar avenue would come.

“That substation was with a view to also feeding the tourist hotel corridor that today we see that they are already being settled next to the sea, we see that this project has the complicity of all the administrations from the municipalities, such as those of the government of the state of Sinaloa because councilors, trustees, and trustees have manifested in silence or in simulation because we do not have a forceful job to stop this ecocide ”, she indicated.

What remains reforested are two properties, one of them is the 8,200 square meter land, less than one hectare, where the Center for Agricultural and Environmental Education operates and the nursery of the Ecological Council of Mazatlán, which is intended as a space for the conservation of flora and fauna.

LOOK, WHAT IS LEFT

And as if that were not enough, now, the municipal government intends to hand over the remaining surface of the City Forest to a private company, on account of a millionaire debt, without taking into account that the polygon in question was donated for recreational purposes, according to the decree published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, on September 14, 1979.

Both lands are not in a condition to be handed over by the City Council to an individual, as established by the decree, which says: The municipality of Mazatlán has requested, in order to build a recreational park for the benefit of the population, it be alienated to free title a surface area of ​​309 thousand 736 square meters, which corresponds to the City Forest.

In the second article of the document, it is warned that if the municipality does not use the polygon for the purposes for which it was donated and they give it a different use than expected, without prior authorization, these will be reverted in favor of the federal government with all its improvements and accessions.

“If we do nothing, everyone will remember that the poorest people used to come to bbq meat or make our piñatas and today they have taken away the only lung of the city, along with the 50-hectare polygon that includes the lagoon, and these properties that serve as recreation for our children and families will also disappear ”, Emma warned.

She pointed out that these green areas of CEMAZ and CEAA are the only thing that remains of the main lung of the city, which also serve as recreation and knowledge of the flora and fauna of the region, where reforestation is taught.

She regretted that projects such as Central Park aimed at concentrating wealth but not at combating poverty, are financed with the public treasury and the money of the people, since to date it has not been reported how much private investment has been carried out in the works.

“They have not shown us a five that they have placed the private company, everything is from our money, from the people; This is completely a reproach to the current municipal president Luis Guillermo Benítez Torres who spoke out in the campaign, promising together with the team of the last three years the defense and that they were pure campaign promises and that today he colludes with the minority mafia that intends to take away from us. our public lands, which belong to the people ”, she concluded.

Source: elsoldemazatlan.com.mx

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