I have lived in Mazatlán since the summer of 1977 and in that six-decade period, I have seen the transition from a traditional tourist destination – that is how Sectur and Fonatur classified tourist destinations in terms of public investment at that time – to another as a hub for tourist development that marketers summarize in the cheerful expression: “Mazatlán is experiencing a tourist boom like never before.”
Indeed, we neighbors see every day how the city grows upwards with its hundreds of ten, fifteen or twenty-story towers that block the blue sky more than 300 days a year.
And on weekends, we suffer when the insufficient roads are filled with hundreds of buses and thousands of cars that bring countrymen from Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Zacatecas or Jalisco to meet the Pearl of the Pacific and its parties.
No less suffering is caused by the hordes of young people who crowd the clubs of the so-called Golden Zone or the Historic Center.
Complaints are the order of the day and security forces are activated and clearly control some of these clubs that everyone seeks to dance, flirt, drink.
Mazatlán, and other tourist destinations in the country, suffer from the boom in leisure that sooner or later will end up exponentially causing what the Spaniards who live in Ibiza, Mallorca, Marbella, the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands archipelago are already experiencing, where in recent months tens of thousands have taken to the streets to say “Enough!” to travel, to tourism due to its predatory nature (see this link) and in Mexico, there are already demonstrations of social and ecological predation in Cancun, Playa del Carmen, San Miguel Allende, Vallarta and Nuevo Vallarta, Los Cabos or Puerto Peñasco.
Gentrification, inflation, pollution, eviction, expensive housing, insufficient public services, garbage, corruption, drugs, prostitution, crime, flooding and privatization of the nation’s public spaces.
For example, in Mazatlán, the emblematic Cerro del Crestón, with its stories of pirate conquerors, which has been the residence of the lighthouse in recent weeks, was the cause of citizen protests.
And the fact is that the “boom” does not respect the Constitution, laws and regulations because someone saw a business opportunity and the structural bases are already in place for a zip line to operate there that will take its clients over the sea to the other base located on Cerro del Vigía.
For environmentalists, this permit and investment is a disaster because it is a fragile place to set up structures given the physical characteristics of that elevation of earth and stone and being the habitat of a large number of species of fauna and flora.
However, even with injunctions and studies that show the unfeasibility of this project, the work continues ahead under the complacent and neoliberal gaze of the authorities of the Semarnat, the INAH, the government and the Congress of the State, the mayor of Mazatlán who seem to be in the logic that in terms of private investments anything goes.
Economic rationality prevails over environmentalist discourses and balances of nature and it is expected that very soon the zip line will begin to function to the displeasure of environmentalists and citizens concerned about the future of the hill and the “largest natural lighthouse in the world.”
That, that the most intrepid climb its 1,556 meters to reflect, enjoy the marine landscape, the arrival and departure of cruise ships, the boats and yachts that set out to sea or, simply, observe how between the mist and the reddish flashes of dawn this city that has inspired and inspires writers and poets awakens.
Some, as economists, will say that it is the cost that capitalist modernization brings with it in its obsession with the “expanded reproduction of capital” and that it knows nothing of constitutional and patrimonial regulations since what matters is the income, the profit – there is the Mazatlan Aquarium that was built with public-private investment and that represents the fabulous 3% of the profits for the city council -, which then reveals another boom, that of the Mazatlan juniors who seek to increase their fortunes by knocking on doors here and there of those who claim to be different from the corrupt of the past.
However, there will be others, who do not see it this way and with a civic spirit, seek a development with a human face that does not deprive what their predecessors enjoyed and wish to preserve it for their children or, simply, continue patiently climbing that kilometer and a half and enjoy the landscape, the flight of the birds and the clouds that the poet and friend José Ángel Leyva likes so much.
Because of this simplicity, those who protest go with their demands to the Paseo de Olas Altas, to the Plazuela Machado, to the radio and TV, while they deploy an intense activity on social networks seeking to provoke reactions in the three levels of government of Morena and to awaken indifferent consciences, to encourage people to join in and for the port to preserve this emblematic habitat of the port.
Perhaps, this fight is lost, there are no government reactions and the structural base of the zip line has already been built and the first safety tests are being carried out, but I still refuse, like others, to think that it is not possible from the three levels of government to regulate, control this anarchic growth of the City, to make it sustainable, habitable, as it was, not long ago.
In a few years we will have —or are already here— the problems derived from a heartless tourism that only thinks about profit, the return on investments without caring about the damage to the environment and the quality of life of the Mazatlecos.
And I close this text, revealing a paradox that is surely repeated in other places, the three levels of government are from Morena, the Semarnat and the INAH are from the federal government, the state from the Morena member Rubén Rocha and the municipal from Edgar González and the surprising thing is that a part of the activists and environmentalists are at least sympathizers of the Morena party that tolerates that and more. You will see, Sancho, that the stones will make talk.
Source: sinembargo
