By Pierre-Marc René and Adriana Varillas
“There was no ecocide in Tajamar, neither environmental devastation”, said Guillermo Haro, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (Profepa) referring to the project Malecón Cancún Tajamar, for which a mangrove swamp was recently destroyed.
However he admitted that even though environmental rules were respected for the first stages of the project, the owners should have requested a new authorization for the third stage, in accordance with the new regulations in force.
He added that the photos of dead animals shown on social networks are not real, because some of those animals were found in Philippines years ago while another was found dead in Cozumel months ago.
Alejandra Serrano, coordinator of the southeast office of the Mexican Center of Environmental Law (CEMDA), said that if the law had been correctly applied, it would have been impossible to approve the project, as it happened in July 2005.
She added that at least two norms (NOM 05 and 022), as well as the Agreement for the Ecological Protection of Nichupté, were violated when the Tajamar project was evaluated.
