Protected areas and coastal and ocean management in México

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Ocean & Coastal Management 48 (2005) 1016–1046 www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman

Protected areas and coastal and ocean management in Me´xico Juan E. Bezaury-Creel The Nature Conservancy—Me´xico, Montan˜as Calizas #455, Me´xico 11000 DF, Mexico Available online 20 June 2005

Abstract No explicit ‘‘integrated coastal and ocean management’’ policy or program has been formally instituted to manage coastal and marine issues in Me´xico. Nevertheless two existing environmental policy tools: ecological zoning programs and coastal and marine protected areas, which have incorporated interagency and multi-stakeholder participation within their design, are currently being used in lieu of such strategy. Coastal and marine protected areas in Me´xico are the result of independent initiatives taken over the last 75 years and as a group cannot be characterized as the result of a systematic approach. Nevertheless Me´xico’s 55 coastal and marine protected areas currently with a valid legal decree, occupy 11,791,824 ha which represents 69% of Mexico’s total protected area surface. Only 46% of these include marine ecosystems with a total of 3,577,527 ha with the remaining 8,216,194 ha consisting of coastal ecosystems. (See In press update.) r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The existence of coastal and marine protected areas in Me´xico is the result of independent initiatives taken over 75 years by nine different presidential administrations, through various federal agencies with jurisdiction over fisheries, wildlife, forestry or the environment, and thus their creation cannot be characterized as a systematic approach. Nevertheless, 55 coastal and marine sites are currently legally Fax: +52 55 56 61 21 75.

E-mail address: [email protected]. 0964-5691/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2005.03.004

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protected and provide key strategic elements that will allow the eventual creation of a comprehensive and representative system of protected areas, which can effectively protect Me´xico’s unique coastal and marine biodiversity. Over the last decade Me´xico has made important strides improving management of these sites, however their consolidation over the next years becomes critical, if the country is to avoid the fate of jeopardizing not only the health of coastal and marine ecosystems, but the livelihood of people whose activities depend upon them. This becomes critically important due to the presence of a highly fragmented coastal and marine legal framework, a dispersed and overlapping body of governmental institutions with jurisdiction over coastal and marine issues, the lack of experience with the creation and consolidation of intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder participatory spaces and the absence of an explicit ‘‘integrated coastal and ocean management’’ State Policy.

2. Coastal and ocean management in Me´xico Even though the necessity of adopting integrated coastal and ocean management (ICM) practices for coastal governance in Me´xico has been discussed within the academic sector over the last two decades, no explicit ICM policy or program has been formally instituted to manage coastal and marine issues in Me´xico. Nevertheless two existing environmental policy tools: ecological zoning programs and coastal and marine protected areas, which have incorporated interagency and multi-stakeholder participation within their design, are currently being used in lieu of such strategy. This situation is based upon the revised Ecology Law of 1996 which states that ‘‘the Federal Government will promote co-responsible participation of society in planning, executing, evaluating and overseeing compliance on environmental and natural resources policy’’. 2.1. Ecological zoning programs Ecological Zoning Programs (Programas de Ordenamiento Ecolo´gico del Territorio—OET) are Mexican environmental policy tools utilized to achieve protection of the environment and sustainable use of natural resources, through a rational spatial distribution of economically productive activities. An Ecological Zoning Program defines land and water use regulations, which in theory apply to all government agencies at the Federal, State and Municipal levels. All public agencies programs need not only to be consistent with, but must fully comply with the OET in their concessions, permitting and authorization processes. In practice, the use of this tool is complicated by extremely fractured jurisdictions given by the law to different agencies at different levels. Still, environmental management is being strengthened by the fact that a currently much more effective environmental impact assessment process, requires compliance with the OETs as a basic requirement. Nongovernmental agents are also brought into compliance through this mechanism. The OET process is meant to consider environmental, social and economic issues.

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Once approved by all appropriate parties including a public consultation process, all other land use plans must be consistent and conform to the OET regulations. While not designed as such, OETs have the potential of becoming the main tool to unify diverse criteria and convoke the different actors that need to be involved in an ICM strategy. Intergovernmental and non-governmental cooperating bodies (commissions, committees, etc.) must actively participate and ‘‘buy-in’’ to various stages of the OET process, including design, implementation, compliance and review to safeguard their effectiveness. If this process were to occur in all coastal areas, it would substantially contribute to a national ICM strategy. As relatively new environmental policy tool, OETs are still quite imperfect, both from technical and policy perspectives. Some government agencies feel that their jurisdiction is being invaded and that stakeholders are encroaching on their regulatory powers. Producers and developers consider that OETs create disincentives for investment. Environmentalists feel that the government does not bring enough political will and administrative resources to enforce the provisions contained within them. All sides can provide important and valid points towards their argument. Four types of OETs are considered in the Ecology Law: General (National level), Regional (all or part of one or more states), local (municipalities) and marine (Federal Jurisdiction). By mid 2002 only 13 regional OETs (numbers 48–60 in Map 1) 9 of which cover coastal zones, had become legally binding instruments which have gone through some form of participatory process, even if at times it was merely a token gesture. The technical process of 35 other OETs had been finished (numbers 13–47), but still lack either political or social consensus, preventing them from being adopted and coming into effect (numbers 1–12 reflect OETs at the project

Map 1. Regional environmental zoning programs [1] (OET type numbers referenced in text).

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stage). The situation is similar with local OETs which cover much smaller territories and thus consensus is easier to reach, where only 8 of them are legal—6 of them covering coastal zones—while other 10 have been technically finished [1]. The only marine OET process initiated to date is targeted at the Gulf of California large marine ecosystem. 2.2. Public efforts towards developing ICM policy in Mexico The development of an ICM policy was seriously considered and discussed for the first time in Me´xico’s governmental sphere, within the Secretariat of the Environment Natural Resources and Fisheries (SEMARNAP) internal Advisors Coordination during the 1994–2000 administration. No effective actions resulted from this effort, derived in part from the realization that even coordinating SEMARNAP’s highly fragmented intra-secretarial departmental responsibilities related to coastal and ocean management was a daunting task. In practical terms the issue was put to rest and only a draft strategy for integrated costal zone management was published as a document with no legal value [2] and management of the 20 m Federal Maritime-Terrestrial Zone was coordinated with coastal municipalities. Nevertheless SEMARNAP instituted participatory consultative bodies at the national level and for each protected area and successfully promoted interagency and public participation into the protected area management strategy. The purpose of this strategy is to assist the management of protected areas through wide ranging consensus building processes. Today the National Protected Areas Council provides input at the system level, while 29 of the 55 coastal and marine protected areas are supported by 25 ‘‘advisory councils’’, covering 84% of their surface area. OET interagency and public participation consultation processes were also reinforced by SEMARNAP during this period. The current’s administration (2000–2006) vision of transversally integrating the environment with other sectoral interests, created the expectation of advancing faster towards the development of ICM policy. Nevertheless little has been done to this respect. SEMARNAT recently contracted three academic institutions: Centro EPOMEX-UAC, CETYs-Universidad and CINVESTAV-Me´rida, to develop ‘‘Guidelines for the development of a national strategy for the implementation of a coastal zone management plan at the national, regional, state and municipal level’’. Over this period, an OET might prove to be the instrument that sets the baseline for a future ICM policy for Me´xico. The urgent need to develop a comprehensive coastal and marine use plan through a marine OET for the Gulf of California was recognized by the Mexican government in 1997. By 2000, the end of the previous presidential administration, basic technical studies for the OET had been finished, but the political and public participatory processes had not been started. The current administration proposed an ambitious nautical tourism project for the region. A project of such scope required not only environmental impact studies at regional and local scales, but also a regional OET to provide the basic framework for the region’s development. Thus the 2000 OET project was reinitiated in collaboration with national and regional academic

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institutions [3] and expanded to include in addition to the Gulf of California, the Baja Californian Pacific and all of the region’s coastal areas including the Baja California Peninsula. While the second technical iteration of the Gulf of California OET had been basically completed by 2002 [3], the initiation of the political and consensus building was overtly blocked by industrial fisheries interests, who manifested that as a result from the OET, all fisheries were going to be banned and the Gulf turned into a marine sanctuary [4]. This was part is a positional response resulting from the recently enforced 1:1 bicatch rule within protected areas, which prevents them from trawling for shrimp within their boundaries, since shrimp trawling activities produce a 1:12 bicatch in the region. Results from preliminary public consultation workshops [5] identified a total of 23 interest groups/stakeholders/activities, these being: aquiculture, agriculture/livestock, protected areas, archeology, hunting, commerce, conservation, urban, energy, natural resource use, forestry, industry, mining, landscape, fisheries, offshore fisheries, commercial fisheries, sport fisheries, industrial fishery, artisan fisheries, pork farms and tourism. A total of 68 negative interactions were identified. Five sectors were associated more frequently with these interactions, in descending order: tourism, conservation, agriculture/livestock, fisheries and urban. Most interactions (54%) were categorized as low or very low priority, 43% as high priority and 3% as very high priority (artisan fishery vs. industrial fishery and aquiculture). Recently SEMARNAT was able to convene all governmental actors required to restart the technical and consultative processes needed in the Gulf of California’s OET. On World Environment Day, July 5 2004, the Secretariat for Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Nourishment; the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation; the Secretariat of the Navy; the Secretariat of Tourism and the Secretariat of Governance (Interior), plus the Governors of the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Sinaloa y Sonora, signed with SEMARNAT two parallel agreements [6,7] to develop the Gulf of California’s marine a coastal OETs. Result from these OET processes whether successful or not, will prove to be the most ambitious and geographically widest ranging ICM experience ever launched in Me´xico and provide invaluable lessons towards the future development of a national strategy. Although the development of OETs and protected areas interagency and public participation consultation processes have resulted in significant advances towards local stakeholder participation in resource management decisions, it is important to recognize that this concept is in its infancy. There are still important forces that support sectoral and authoritarian decision making process. In addition, a great deal of stakeholder training and capacity development needs to take place in order to be able to achieve positive and long lasting results from the public participation process. 2.3. Private efforts towards developing ICM practices in Me´xico While an integrated approach to coastal zone management has not been considered as a high priority issue by the Mexican Government at its three

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levels, academics have kept working towards developing research projects, conceptual frameworks for implementation and generating awareness of the critical importance of utilizing this approach to achieve sustainable use of our coastal and marine resources. Several workshops dealing with ICM have taken place since 2000. Two experimental ICM projects, both including protected area components have been carried out through partnerships established between the University of Rhode Island—Coastal Research Center, local NGOs, a University and coastal communities. The first one is still taking place in the Caribbean coast of southern Quintana Roo through a partnership with Xcalak Community Committee (XCC), Amigos de Sian Ka’an an NGO and the University of Quintana Roo [8]. The Xcalak National Park is one of the results of this project and the Costa Maya OET received important input from it. A voluntary tool to promote ‘‘best practices’’ for low impact tourism infrastructure development was also a tangible product. Empowerment of state and municipal authorities for coastal management issues and integrating ICM in the University’s structure through the formal creation of an extension, outreach and policy programs, were also an important component of the project. The second project is being developed in Bahı´ a de Santa Marı´ a, Sonora, one of the highly productive estuaries in the Gulf of California, in partnership with local municipal authorities, the local community and Conservation International. Results from this project include a management strategy, which addresses a set of issues that could not be resolved by proposing a protected area (although the Bay Islands do fall within the Gulf of California Islands Flora and Fauna Protection Area). Second, this may be the first experience in Me´xico where two coastal municipalities collaborated and provided leadership during strategy preparation. Third, the municipalities have played an active role in the design and adoption of a joint implementation mechanism, a council of the two governments that includes a trust fund, which will secure and administer implementation funds from local and state government, private sector, and donor institutions. It will also create an expanded bay council with representation from bay users, public officials, the education community, and communities [9]. Since OETs are still relatively weak tools, mainly due to the lack of human and financial resources for enforcement, many investors and developers still consider that ‘‘it is better to ask for forgiveness that for a permit’’. This results on late and inefficient enforcement measures, derived mainly from public outcry and pressure. The ‘‘environmental guards’’ concept developed for the Maya Coast OET—south and adjacent to Sian Ka’an—currently being experimented by Amigos de Sian Ka’an, might prove to be a model that provides other OETs with a good set of teeth. This model integrates a non-official operative network of NGOs, interested individuals and government officials from different levels and agencies involved in issues related to coastal development and conservation. Network’s participants, individually keep abreast of what is happening in the region covered by the OET, and in case that non-compliance is detected and verified, they act in coordination with the other participants of the network, to call the attention of the governmental

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agency in charge of solving the non-compliance problem. Capacity that allows for public broadcasting efforts and/or direct legal action to resolve the non-compliance issue is also created within the network.

3. Evolution of coastal and marine protected areas in Me´xico Coastal and marine protected areas were relatively late emerging as a tool for Me´xico’s conservation efforts, where the first terrestrial protected area was established in 1876. The first marine protected area included territorial waters surrounding Isla Guadalupe an offshore island in the Pacific Ocean, which were ‘‘reserved for the protection and development of the natural riches which they contain’’ in 1922. By 1928, they were further reestablished as a Hunting and Fisheries Reserve Area under the 1925 Fisheries Law, mainly to protect the Northern Elephant Seal (Mirounga angustirostris) and the Guadalupe Fur Seal (Arctocephalus townsedi). The first true coastal national park, Lagunas de Chacahua was created in 1937 under the Forestry Law by the forestry and wildlife management authority, to protect an important estuarine area on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. That same year the Cajo´n del Diablo Hunting Reserve, that includes most of the rocky coast of Sonora, was established on the Gulf of California coast. Progress in establishing coastal and marine protected areas is best understood within the framework of the now 6 year presidential terms (Chart 1), since federal decisions play a dominant role in the pace and orientation of their formation and consolidation. Between 1958 and 1964, three Natural Reserve and Refuge Zones were created by the forestry and wildlife management agency, to protect land fauna and marine birds breeding grounds in three islands: Contoy in the Caribbean (1961) and Tiburon (1963) and Rasa (1964) in the Gulf of California. Since these

Chart 1. Evolution of federal coastal and marine protected areas in Me´xico.

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were established under the 1952 Federal Hunting law, they could not include surrounding waters, a major limitation for many Mexican coastal island and shore sites. 3.1. President Luis Echeverrı´a’s administration From 1970 to 1976 marine protection efforts became more evident and diversified within the agency in charge of fisheries protection. The lagoons used as breeding and calving grounds for the Grey Whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in Baja California Sur, were given protection status in 1972. First only Laguna Ojo de Liebre as a Whale Refuge under the Fisheries Law and latter in the same year, expanding the mandate under the Hunting Law, the Laguna Ojo de Liebre and San Ignacio Reserve and Refuge Area for Migratory Birds an Wildlife was created. Five protected areas were established under the new 1972 Fisheries Fostering Law: the Costa Occidental de Isla Mujeres, Punta Cancu´n y Nizuc Marine Wildlife Refuge (1973) was created in the Caribbean Sea in order to protect the reefs around the new tourism development of Cancu´n; the Cabo San Lucas Wildlife and Sea Bed Ecological Conditions Refuge protecting underwater ‘‘sand falls’’ off the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula (1973); the Desembocadura del Rı´ o Colorado Fishery Species Replenishment and Nursery Reserve in the upper Gulf of California, established mainly to protect the endemic Totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) (1974); and, two marine wildlife protection refuges, Arcos de Vallarta on the Pacific coast of Jalisco (1975) and La Blanquilla reefs in front of Veracruz on the Gulf of Me´xico (1975). 3.2. President Jose Lo´pez Portillo’s administration Over the 1976–1982 period presidential administration, protected areas were created by three different government agencies. The agency in charge of fisheries used the Fisheries Fostering Law to create: the Playa Rancho Nuevo Refuge in Tamaulipas (1977) in the Gulf of Me´xico for the protection Olive Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempi); two new decrees expanded the area covered by the previous decrees protecting the Gray Whale breeding and calving grounds (1979 and 1980); and, the Costa Occidental de Isla Cozumel Marine Wildlife Protection Refuge (1980) was established to protect the coral reefs that were supporting an important diving destination. The Federal Hunting Law was used to establish four coastal protected areas by the agency in charge of wildlife: the Islas del Golfo de California Reserve and Refuge Zone for Acuatic and Migratory Birds (1978) to protect migratory birds and endemic reptile species; the Rı´ a Celestu´n and Rı´ a Lagartos (both in 1979) faunal refuges in coastal Yucatan to protect the breeding and feeding areas of the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber); the Valle de los Cirios Forestry Protection Zone and Wildlife Refuge in Baja California (1980), which was additionally based on the Forestry Law. Finally, the agency in charge of public works, which by then was administering national parks for recreation, established three new coastal national parks based upon the Forestry Law: El Veladero (1980) surrounding Acapulco; Isla Isabel (1980) an offshore island in Nayarit at the Pacific Ocean; and, Tulum (1981) in

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the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo, to protect the natural environment surrounding an important coastal Maya site. 3.3. President Miguel de la Madrı´d’s administration During the next presidential period, 1982–1988, environmental issues were finally raised to an under-ministerial level, through the creation of the Secretary of Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE). This served to unify the management of protected areas. Sian Ka’an (1986) was the first protected area established in Me´xico as the result of an federal-state-municipal and local stakeholder process. Sian Ka’an was created using the term ‘‘biosphere reserve’’ as a place name, since such protected area management category was not contemplated within the Federal Law for Environmental Protection and the Forestry Law upon which its establishment was based. The fisheries and environmental agencies jointly established seventeen Refuge Sites for Protection, Repopulation, Development and Control of Diverse Species of Marine Turtles (1987) in one decree, including two beaches in the Gulf of Me´xico, one in the Caribbean, 12 in the Pacific Ocean and two in the Gulf of California, with a total coastal length of 348 km. In 1988 the General Law for Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection (from now on Ecology Law) unified protected areas legislation and became the legal base for the creation of all new protected areas. The Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve (1988) was created under this new now valid protected area management category, over previously established areas protecting the Gray Whale and enlarged to include coastal and marine habitats in the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean. 3.4. President Carlos Salina’s administration During the 1988–1994 presidential term, environmental management was transferred to the agency dealing with social development (SEDESOL). Terrestrial national parks in turn were separated out and transferred back to the agency responsible for forestry policy and management, while the rest of the protected areas remained within the new environmental management agency. This became an active period for the creation of new coastal and marine protected areas. New marine protected areas included: two important coral reef areas in the Gulf of Me´xico, Sistema Arrecifal Veracruzano (1992) and Arrecife Alacranes (1994) which were created utilizing the new ‘‘marine national park’’ protected area management category; and two biosphere reserves, Alto Golfo de California y Delta del Rı´ o Colorado (1993) in the upper Gulf of California which includes a greater part of the habitat where the endemic Vaquita Porpoise (Phocoena sinus) lives; and, Archipie´lago de Revillagigedo (1994) protecting Me´xico’s most important offshore Pacific islands group and surrounding waters. Coastal protected areas included three biosphere reserves: Pantanos de Centla in Tabasco (1992) to protect important coastal wetlands in the Gulf of Me´xico, El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar in Sonora (1993) comprising the coastal zone adjacent to the marine Biosphere Reserve in the upper Gulf of California, and Chamela-Cuixmala in Jalisco (1993) to protect

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coastal Pacific dry forests. Three flora and fauna protection areas were also created, Laguna de Te´rminos in Campeche (1994) which along with Centla protect the most extensive wetland system in the Gulf of Me´xico, Yum Balam (1994) protecting the northern Gulf of Me´xico wetlands of Quintana Roo and Uaymil (1994) adjacent to the southern border of Sian Ka’an protecting it’s upper watershed between Espı´ ritu Santo y Chetumal bays (Map 2). 3.5. President Ernesto Zedillo’s administration During the 1994–2000 presidential period, integrating renewable natural resources management became the focus of the federal environmental policy agenda. Thus forestry, wildlife, fisheries, water, pollution and the 20 m federal zone along the coast were among the jurisdictions integrated under SEMARNAP, the new agency responsible for the environment. Protected area management, including terrestrial national parks, was reunified once again within this agency and given a higher political visibility and operational status through the creation of the National Protected Area Commission, directly under the Minister for the Environment. Early into the administration protected areas started to shed their reputation as paper parks, as professional staff and budget were allocated to many of the sites. Eleven marine protected areas are created, with the participation of local coastal stakeholders: two in Baja California Sur, Cabo Pulmo (1995) to protect the northernmost reefs in the Pacific and Bahı´ a de Loreto (1996) where industrial fishing activities were jeopardizing the sustainability of the local sport fishery. The controversy over the construction of a cruise ship pier in Cozumel, became an international case utilizing for the first time a tri-national environmental protection mechanism derived from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The social visibility that coral reefs suddenly acquired as a byproduct of this dispute, helped create support for seven new marine protected areas that were established in the Caribbean Sea: three previously existing areas in Quintana Roo were enlarged and had their legal instruments modernized as marine national parks, due to tourism related activities that had experienced an explosive growth: Arrecifes de Cozumel (1996), Costa Occidental de Isla Mujeres, Punta Cancu´n y Punta Nizuc (1996) and finally Isla Contoy (1998) now including it’s surrounding marine zone; two biosphere reserves, Banco Chinchorro (1996) an offshore pseudo atoll and Arrecifes de Sian Ka’an (1998) to include coral reefs and coastal lagoons previously excluded from the original decree; and two new national parks—now as a reunified protected area management category derived from changes in the Ecology Law that includes both terrestrial and marine parks—Arrecife de Puerto Morelos (1998) south of Cancu´n and Arrecifes de Xcalak (2000) on the border with Belize. Me´xico collaborated with Belize, Guatemala and Honduras in 1997, the International Year of the Reef to promote the Mesoamerican Caribbean Coral Reef Systems Initiative, opening a mechanism to jointly manage a shared marine ecosystem. In the Pacific Ocean the Huatulco National Park protecting coral communities in Oaxaca (1998) and the Islas Marı´ as Biosphere Reserve (2000) with an important oceanic component were established. Six coastal protected areas were also created during this period,

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Map 2. Federal coastal and marine protected areas (Only for areas currently under legal status). 1) Parque Nacional Lagunas de Chacahua, 2) Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Cabo San Lucas, 3) Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Islas del Golfo de California, 4) Reserva de la Biosfera las Aguas del Complejo Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Manuela y Guerrero Negro), 5 Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Valle de los Cirios, 6) Parque Nacional El Veladero, 7) Parque Nacional Isla Isabel, 8) Parque Nacional Tulum, 9) Reserva de la Biosfera Sian Ka’an, 10) Santuario Playa de Puerto Arista, 11) Santuario Playa de Tierra Colorada, 12) Santuario Playa Piedra de Tlacoyunque, 13) Santuario Playa Cuitzmala, 14) Santuario Playa de Mismaloya, 15) Santuario Playa El Tecua´n, 16) Santuario Playa Teopa, 17) Santuario Playa de Maruata y Colola, 18) Santuario Playa Mexiquillo, 19) Santuario Playa de Escobilla, 20) Santuario Playa de la Bahı´ a de Chacahua, 21) Santuario Playa de la Isla Contoy, 22) Santuario Playa Ceuta, 23) Santuario Playa el Verde Camacho, 24) Santuario Playa de Rancho Nuevo, 25) Santuario Playa Rı´ o Lagartos, 26) Reserva de la Biosfera El Vizcaı´ no, 27) Reserva de la Biosfera Pantanos de Centla, 28) Parque Nacional Sistema Arrecifal Veracruzano, 29) Reserva de la Biosfera Alto Golfo de California y Delta del Rı´ o Colorado, 30) Reserva de la Biosfera El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar, 31) Reserva de la Biosfera Chamela-Cuixmala, 32) Parque Nacional Arrecife Alacranes, 33) Reserva de la Biosfera Archipie´lago de Revillagigedo, 34) Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Laguna de Te´rminos, 35) Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Yum Balam, 36) Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Uaimil, 37) Reserva de la Biosfera La Encrucijada, 38) Parque Nacional Cabo Pulmo, 39) Parque Nacional Bahı´ a de Loreto, 40) Parque Nacional Arrecifes de Cozumel, 41) Parque Nacional Costa Occidental de Isla Mujeres, Punta Cancu´n y Punta Nizuc, 42) Reserva de la Biosfera Banco Chinchorro, 43) Reserva de la Biosfera Arrecifes de Sian Ka’an, 44) Parque Nacional Arrecife de Puerto Morelos, 45) Parque Nacional Isla Contoy, 46) Parque Nacional Huatulco, 47) Reserva de la Biosfera Los Tuxtlas, 48) Reserva de la Biosfera Rı´ a Lagartos, 49) Reserva de la Biosfera Los Petenes, 50) Reserva de la Biosfera Islas Marı´ as, 51) Reserva de la Biosfera Rı´ a Celestu´n, 52) Area de Proteccio´n de Flora y Fauna Meseta de Cacaxtla, 53) Parque Nacional Arrecifes de Xcalak, 54) Reserva de la Biosfera Isla San Pedro Ma´rtir, 55) Santuario Islas La Pajarera, Cocinas, Mamut, Colorada, San Pedro, San Agustı´ n, San Andre´s y Negrita y los Islotes Los Anegados, Novillas, Mosca y Submarino.

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including five biosphere reserves: La Encrucijada in coastal Chiapas (1995) protecting Me´xico’s most biodiverse wetland; Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz (1998); Los Petenes (1999) wetlands on Campeche coast of the Gulf of Me´xico; Rı´ a Lagartos (1999) and Rı´ a Celestu´n (2000) in Yucatan were expanded and their 1979 legal mandates fully updated. Coastal Sinaloa in the Gulf of California gained one flora and fauna protection area, Meseta de Cacaxtla (2000). In that same year Cabo San Lucas and Islas del Golfo were re-categorized as flora and fauna protection areas, Sian Ka0 an was finally re-categorized as a biosphere reserve, as well as the Complejo Laguna Ojo de Liebre that includes Manuela y Guerrero Negro lagoons created for the Grey Whales in 1980 and all existing marine national parks were re-categorized now as national parks. 3.6. President Vicente Fox’s administration During the current presidential administration (2000–2006), fisheries have been separated again from the Secretarial of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) and placed under the Secretariat for Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Nourishment (SAGARPA). This situation has produced not only unfortunate consequences for coastal and marine protected area management, which still remains unified within the environmental agenda, but also has enormously complicated the establishment of new ones. Work is under way to create nine new coastal and marine protected areas, while two others have already been established: Isla San Pedro Ma´rtir Biosphere Reserve (2002) within a strategy to provide protected areas status to the waters surrounding all the Gulf of California Islands; and, Islas de la Bahia de Chamela (2002) off shore but close to the Chamela Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve in the Pacific. Previously established Marine Turtle Refuge Sites that included 17 nesting beaches were re-categorized as sanctuaries (2002) to comply with current protected area legislation. Over the whole extent of Me´xico’s Exclusive Economic Zone the Great Whale Aquatic Species Protection Area (2002) was created. Established by the new Wildlife Law, aquatic species protection areas are equivalent to no take zones and thus strictly not a protected area, nevertheless the Protection Plan required for their management can become a tool for interagency—multi-stakeholder participation. 3.7. State, municipal and private coastal and marine protected areas Even though Me´xico is working toward the decentralization of environmental management functions, at the state level, only seven of the 17 Mexican states adjacent to the coast have established coastal protected areas (Baja California Sur, Sonora, Veracruz), four of them (Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo and Yucata´n) have included marine portions within them, even though marine jurisdiction is strictly Federal. Two Municipal Governments, La Paz in Baja California Sur and Tampico in Tamaulipas have established protected areas in coastal ecosystems. Private land protection efforts in Me´xico are still in their infancy and to date only four small private protected areas have been established protecting coastal lands.

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4. Mexican Legislation affecting protected area and coastal and ocean management today The legislative framework for coastal and ocean management in Me´xico is composed of International Conventions and Agreements signed by Me´xico and by a body of Mexican Laws, Regulations, Decrees, Secretarial Agreements and Official Mexican Standards. 4.1. International conventions and agreements Me´xico has signed all major International Law instruments, dealing with coastal and marine biodiversity. These include: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (London Convention), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar) and the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean (Cartagena Convention), although the ratification of the Protocol on Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW Protocol) is still pending. Me´xico also subscribes to the principles of the UN Agreement on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, UNEPs Conference on Protection of the Marine Environmental from Land-Based Activities and participates in the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and its Sub commission for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (IOCARIBE). 4.2. National laws and regulations Me´xico’s legislative framework dealing with coastal and marine issues is highly fragmented and in some instances outright conflicting. Me´xico does not have a single law that regulates conservation and use of its biological diversity, since they are contained in five central pieces of legislation and their regulations: the General Law for Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection or Ecology Law (Ley General del Equilibrio Ecolo´gico y Proteccio´n al Ambiente, 1988 and 1996); the General Wildlife Law (Ley General de Vida Silvestre, 2000); the Federal Fisheries Law (Ley Federal de Pesca, 1992), General Sustainable Forestry Development Law (Ley General de Desarrollo Forestal Sustentable, 2003); and the Official Mexican Standard (Norma Oficial Mexicana, NOM-059-ECOL-2000, 2002) which lists endangered and threatened species. Ocean pollution control provisions are also dispersed among a variety of laws and regulations. The Federal Oceans Law (Ley Federal del Mar, 1986) provides generally that all prevention, reduction, and control of ocean pollution is to be regulated under the Ecology Law, the National Waters Law (Ley de Aguas Nacionales, 1992, 2004),

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the General Health Law (Ley General de Salud), and their implementing regulations. Official Mexican Standards (Normas Oficiales Mexicanas NOM) also apply to wastewater discharges into the oceans. The General Law of National Property (Ley General de Bienes Nacionales 1982, 1984, 2004) and the Regulation for the Use and Exploitation of the Territorial Sea, Navigable Waters, Beaches, Federal Coastal Land Zone and Newly Emerged Lands (Reglamento para el uso y aprovechamiento de mares territoriales, aguas navegables, playas, la zona federal marı´timo terrestre y terrenos ganados al mar, 1992) regulate management the 20 m Federal Maritime-Terrestrial Zone. Maritime transit is regulated through the Ports Law (Ley de Puertos, 1993) and the Navigation Law (Ley de Navegacio´n, 1994) which prohibits all vessels from discharging garbage, petroleum and petroleum derivatives, wastewater discharges and other dangerous and noxious elements that could contaminate or harm waters under Mexican jurisdiction. Tourism activities are regulated by the Tourism Law (Ley Federal de Turismo, 1992) and a body of Official Mexican Standards. General Laws in Me´xico (such as the Ecology, Wildlife and Sustainable Forestry Laws) provide a basic regulatory framework, that allows for the establishment of a decentralized federalist legal system in which both the states and the federal government share regulatory authority over issues specified by the General law. While SEMARNAT is the administrative authority responsible for almost all environmental issues under federal jurisdiction, all 31 states have created their own environmental legal regimes. Changes made to the Ecology Law in 1996 and again in 2001, set the stage for granting states more extensive jurisdiction and regulatory authority. Increased decentralization should not, however, result in lowered Mexican environmental standards. Rather federal standards establish a floor that must be met. State standards must be equivalent to or more stringent than the federal standards. Nevertheless, in coastal and marine issues, states and municipalities are expected to have a minimal impact on policy in the near future, since these areas still remain primarily under federal jurisdiction. This situation highlights the importance of their inclusion on coastal and marine participatory processes, since land related jurisdictions belong to the states and municipalities, especially those related to land use and building permits, which are assigned directly to the municipalities by the Mexican Constitution. All the above mentioned laws, in addition to all other Mexican laws covering subjects as diverse as agriculture, oil and mineral exploration and extraction, fresh water use and extraction, human settlements, private property, agrarian communal property (ejidos and communities), etc., apply within protected areas and over the territories covered by OETs. Protected areas and OETs have their own particular Regulations derived from the Ecology Law (Reglamento de la LGEEPA en Materia de Areas Naturales Protegidas, 2000 and Reglamento de la LGEEPA en Materia de Ordenamiento Ecolo´gico, 2003). Protected Areas Regulations specify that fisheries bycatch within them, cannot exceed the volume of the target species, a crucial but still poorly enforced provision intended to increase sustainability of fisheries. The Management Program (plan) for each protected area and specifically the Administrative Rules defined within it, contain specific regulations applicable to

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that area. Currently, 18 coastal and marine protected areas or 33% of them have an official management program, representing 57% of their surface area. 4.3. Coastal zone jurisdiction Jurisdiction over Me´xico’s coastal zone remains highly fragmented, with 8 out of the 19 cabinet functions at the Federal level having direct involvement over coastal and marine management and the rest holding indirect functions: the Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) has jurisdiction over forestry, wildlife, endangered species, water, pollution and the 20 m Federal Maritime-Terrestrial Zone amongst others; the Secretariat for Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Nourishment (SAGARPA) is responsible of managing fish stocks; the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) has jurisdiction over ports and navigation; the Navy Secretariat’s (SEMAR) main responsibility is to assert Me´xico’s sovereign rights over territorial waters within the confines of international law, including ocean pollution; the Secretariat of Tourism (SECTUR) promotes and regulates tourism related activities; the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (SRA) deals with communal land tenure; the Secretariat of Energy (SENER) under which the National Petroleum Company (PEMEX) is sectorialized; and, the Secretariat of Governance (SEGOB) who has jurisdiction over Me´xico’s islands. This situation is further complicated by highly fragmented intra-secretarial departmental responsibilities, as well as separate departments belonging to states and municipalities and their operative units.

5. Characteristics of the Mexican protected area program Since protected areas represent to date the most advanced experience to date towards the development of ICM practices, it is important to specify those particular characteristics that define Mexico’s protected area program. 5.1. Mexico’s protected area program Me´xico’s efforts to conserve biodiversity encompass an overwhelming necessity to provide goods and services to its growing population. Thus national conservation approaches deal primarily with practical issues rather than ethical concepts. Within this context, strict reserves, mainly biosphere reserve core zones and sanctuaries, are established as benchmarks to monitor long-term effects of human utilization on ecosystems and not for the mere concept of wilderness. Protected areas constitute an important part of the Mexican strategy to protect biodiversity. Most Mexican protected areas are conceptualized as multiple use zones, where activities are limited by the thresholds imposed by sustainable use of natural resources. This means that protected areas are not isolated from the National economy, but rather participate to enhance and consolidate Me´xico’s economy within the limits imposed by the need to conserve their environmental conditions. This situation has generated certain

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confusion, when it is assumed that the extents of Mexican marine protected areas are ‘‘de facto’’ no-take zones. Although protected areas management plans might call for certain portions not being fished, no-take zones can also be created outside protected areas, since they are regulated through different legal bases, mainly the Wildlife Law to protect endangered species, marine mammals and sea turtles and the Fisheries Law for commercial marine species. Another crucial characteristic of Mexican protected areas is that existing land tenure within their boundaries is not altered by their creation, but rather land use is restricted through the signing of the presidential decree creating the protected area, in order to accommodate environmental protection purposes. This has as its legal basis Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which states that originally all land belongs to the nation, who creates private and communal property but can still impose limitations to its use in order to achieve public benefits. Expropriation of lands has been used by certain administrations, but is currently used only in exceptional cases when a strict no use policy is required. It also is important to clarify that private and communal property of land in Me´xico refers only to surface rights, since property of the subsoil including mineral and water rights belongs to the nation. Everything that relates to water is within Federal Jurisdiction in Me´xico. Rivers, streams and all freshwater bodies have an adjacent Federal Zone (or ribera) with a width of 5 m on each side when the current is less than 5 m wide or 10 m on all other situations. On the coastal zone a 20 m Federal Maritime-Terrestrial Zone exists on by all beaches and around all coastal lagoons and estuaries. The objectives of Mexican protected areas as defined by the Ecology Law are: preserve representative environments from natural biogeographic and ecologic regions and their ecosystems; safeguard genetic diversity of wildlife upon which their evolutionary continuity depends and insure preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, specially of endangered, threatened, endemic, rare species and those subject to special protection; assure sustainable use of ecosystems and their elements; provide opportunities for scientific research and for the study of ecosystems and their balance; generate, recover and communicate traditional or new knowledge, practices and technologies that will allow for preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity; protect towns, communications and industrial infrastructure, agricultural lands and the hydrological cycle of watersheds; and, protect the natural surroundings of archeological, artistic and historical zones, monuments and remains, tourism zones and other areas important for recreation, culture and national and indigenous communities identity. 5.2. Extent of Mexico’s coastal and marine protected areas Me´xico’s 55 coastal and marine protected areas currently with a valid legal decree (Isla Guadalupe, Cajo´n del Diablo and Arcos de Vallarta are thus excluded), represent 37% of a total of 148 protected areas currently legally updated, comprising 11,793,721 ha [10] or 67.8% of their total surface area. Only 45.5% of these include marine ecosystems with a total of 3,577,527 ha and the remaining 8,216,194 ha consisting of coastal ecosystems (Tables 1 and 2).

512,273 12,305,994

— — 37 — —

—

— 55

15

70

20,442,900 11,793,721

3,041,800

17,401,100

100

148

Total surface area (ha) (a)

Total federal protected areas Total state protected areas Total federal & state PAs Total federal coastal and marine protected areas Total state coastal and marine protected areas Total coastal and marine federal & state PAs

%

Number of areas

Protected areas currently with a legal instrument

8,472,201

(c) 256,007

(b)16,609,112 (c) 8,216,194

(b) 2,785,534

(b)13,823,573

Terrestrial (b) coastal (c) surface area (ha)

68.8

50.0

81.2 69.6

91.6

79.5

% (of a)

3,833,793

256,266

3,833,793 3,577,527

256,266

3,577,527

Marine surface area (ha)

31.2

50.0

18.8 30.4

8.4

20.5

% (of a)

1032

Table 1 Territorial coverage of Mexican coastal and marine protected areas

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Table 2 Ecosystem types in Mexican coastal and marine protected areas Ecosystem

Number of federal MPAs

Marine ecosystems

25

45.5

8

53.3

0

0

Coastal ecosystems Coastal lagoons Flooded vegetation Coastal lands Highlands

16 25 49 25

29.0 45.5 89.0 45.5

11 14 13 9

73.0 93.3 86.6 60.0

1 4 3 1

25 100 75 25

4

100

Total number of areas

55

%

100

Number of state MPAs

15

%

100

Number of non governmental MPAs

%

Coastal and Marine Federal and State protected areas include a total of 12,305,994 ha, of which the 8,472,201 ha of coastal surface area represents 4.3% of Me´xico’s terrestrial territory. Marine protected areas with a total surface area of 3,833,793 ha represent 18.3% of Me´xico’s Territorial Sea, 9.7% of its continental platform and 1.2% of its Exclusive Economic Zone (Table 3).

5.3. National and international management categories The Ecology law defines six federal protected area management categories of which only four: sanctuary, biosphere reserve, national park and flora and fauna protection area, have been used on coastal and marine protected areas (Table 4). These correspond to only three categories of IUCNs classification: Category Ia— Strict Nature Reserve, whose primary management objective is scientific research includes 293,478 ha representing 8.2% of the total; Category II—National Park, whose primary management objectives include ecosystem protection and recreation, include 629,341 ha representing 17.6%; and, Category VI—Managed Resource Protected Area, whose primary objective is sustainable management of natural resources to provide goods and services to communities include 2,652,811 ha representing 74.2%. Me´xico has 40 coastal and marine sites recognized by international protection status, 32 of them with currently hold national protection status, 28 of which correspond to Federal protected areas, three at the state level and one private protected area belonging to an academic institution. Eight Ramsar sites currently do not hold national protection status. Thus 39.2% of the surface area of federal coastal and marine protected areas is considered in MAB Biosphere Reserve system, 33.6% as RAMSAR Sites and 7.6% as World Heritage Sites (Table 5).

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Table 3 Comparison between coastal and marine protected areas territorial coverage and Me´xico’s terrestrial and marine surface areas Me´xico

Terrestrial (Total terrestrial PAs including coastal) Coastal (Total coastal PAs) Territorial Seaa (Total marine PAs) Continental platforma (Total marine PAs) Exclusive economic zone (Total marine PAs) Total (Total federal & state PAs)

Total surface area (km2)

Federal protected areas total surface (km2)

1,964,375 [11]

138,236

1,964,375 [11]

%

State protected areas total surface (km2)

%

Total protected areas total surface (km2)

%

7.0

27,855

1.4

166,091

8.4

82,161

4.2

2,560

0.1

84,721

4.3

209,000 [12]

35,775

17.1

2,562

1.2

38,337

18.3

394,603 [13]

35,775

9.1

2,562

0.6

38,337

9.7

3,149,920 [11]

35,775

1.1

2,562

0.1

38,337

1.2

5,114,295 [11]

174,011

3.4

30,418

0.6

204,429

4.0

a

Exclusively for comparative purposes, since a small portions of the MPAs surface are located outside the Territorial Sea or the Continental platform.

6. Management capacity for coastal and marine protected areas Even though Me´xico’s protected areas have existed for over a century, most of them kept a paper status until the last decade, where a quantum leap on their conservation capacity was achieved. Professional personnel was assigned to the areas, participatory bodies to assist on their management were established, management plans were defined, legislation was updated and the budget assigned for protected areas grew exponentially. The National Protected Area Commission (CONANP), who reports directly to the Environmental Minister (then to SEMARNAP now to SEMARNAT) was also created during this period. 6.1. Staffing protected areas This change was detonated through an initially ill-conceived Global Environmental Facility grant that aspired to create and consolidate management capacity on

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Table 4 Federal management categories defined by the ecology law National category

Compatible activities

IUCN category

Sanctuary (Sanct.)

Compatible research, recreation and environmental education. Preservation of ecosystems and their elements, research, environmental education. Productive activities by the local communities or with their participation. Natural resources protection, wildlife enhancement, preservation of ecosystems and their elements, research, recreation, tourism and environmental education. Additionally, natural resources use in marine zones. Preservation, research, recreation and education. Preservation, repopulation, propagation, acclimatization, refuge, research, sustainable use of such species, education and diffusion on these issues, Natural resource use by local communities or those that studies prove their feasibility. Preservation, protection, sustainable use of natural resources, research, recreation, tourism and environmental education.

Ia

Biosphere reserve (BR)

Core zone

Buffer zone

National park (NP)

Natural monument Flora and fauna protection area (FFPA)

Natural resources protection area

Ia

VI

II

III VI

VI

10 areas, over an extremely short period of only 5 years, through an investment of US $25 Million from GEF and 8 million from the Mexican Government. This grant was later redesigned and turned into a success story, when the Mexican Protected Area Fund was created with $16.48 Million from GEF funds which were left over after the end of the 5 year period and a $5 million match. Nevertheless since 1993, funding from this project allowed for the hiring of a professional staff body, equipping the sites and paying operational expenses. By 1995 SEMARNAP through the Federal budget, directly hired a basic administrative body composed of 5 staff members for each of these 10 areas. By the year 2000, 52 administrative bodies had been assembled covering a total of 60 protected areas, representing 45.5% of the 148 protected areas currently with a legal instrument. Most of these also count with

321,723

144,360 60,217 81,482

1993

1995

2003 2004

Alto Golfo de California y Delta del Rı´ o Colorado BR

Islas del Golfo de California FFPA Bahı´ a de Loreto NP Isla Isabel NP Banco Chinchorro BR Rı´ a Lagartos BR Rı´ a Celestum BR Pantanos de Centla BR La Encrucijada BR Huatulco NP Isla Contoy NP Arrecifes de Xcalak NP Playa Rancho Nuevo Sanct. Playa Tierra Colorada Sanct. Archip. Revillagigedo BR Chamela-Cuixmala BR Los Petenes BR

934,756

2,546,790

1993

El Vizcaı´ no BR

528,148

1986 17,500 36,600 250,000

30,165 206,581 94 144,360 60,348 81,482 302,706 144,868 44,400 5126 17,949 30 54 636,685 13,142 282,857

2004 I. SP Ma´rtir BR 2004 2003 2004 1986 2004 1995 1996 2003 2003 2003 2003 2003 2004 2004 2004

652,193

Surface area

2003 Uaymil FFPA Arrecifes SK BR 2004 L. Sn. Ignacio 2004 Ojo de Liebre 1996

Accepted

Accepted

Surface area

RAMSAR Wetland

Man and the Biosphere Biosphere Reserve MABUNESCO

Indicative list

1993 San Ignacio and Ojo de Liebre Lagoons Indicative List (currently under evaluation) together with: Cabo Pulmo NP, Cabo San Lucas FFPA, El Vizcaino BR, and Islas Marı´ as BR

1987

Accepted

UNESCO World Heritage Site

370,950

528,000

Surface area

1036

Sian Ka’an BR

Coastal or marine site

Table 5 Coastal and marine protected areas with international protection status

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Note: Indicated surface areas include only the amount registered for each category in each area.

39 Areas

Total Mexico 40 areas

4,617,476

8 Areas

Total 32 Areas w/no PA status 7 Areas

1995 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004

31 Areas

Total 32 protected areas

Marismas Nacionales Laguna Madre Laguna Playa Colorada—Sta. Marı´ a Laguna Sontecomapan Islas Marietas Acuitan Turtle Beach Chenka´n Turtle Beach Alvarado Lagoon System

2004

La Mancha y El Llano (Private) 4,617,476

2000 2003 2004

Dzilam State Reserve El Palmar State Reserve Pla.X’cacel-X’cacelito ZSCE

7 Areas

2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004

Laguna de Te´rminos FFPA Yum Balam FFPA Arrecife de Pto.Morelos NP Sist. Arrec. Veracruzano NP Playa Verde Camacho Sanct. Playa Mexiquillo Sanct.

4,805,413

837,224

200,000 307,894 53,140 8921 94 65 100 267,010

3,968,189

1414

61,707 50,177 362

705,516 154,052 9066 52,238 6450 67

2 Areas

2 Areas

898,950

898,950

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Table 6 Personnel assigned to Mexican protected areas

Personnel at the central offices Personnel on site at protected areas Total personnel for protected areas

1995

1996

1998

2000

2002

136 0 136

136 138 274

119 193 312

119 273 392

135 320 455

Information provided by the Comisio´n Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas—SEMARNAT.

additional staff, hired from funds derived from the federal budget or through the interests produced by the Protected Area Fund, representing an average of over 54,000 ha per person (Table 6). Currently 33 coastal and marine protected areas are managed by 24 administrative bodies while 3 others operate through agreements with other government or institutions. This means that 64% of Mexico’s coastal and marine protected areas are being managed, representing 98.5% of their coastal surface area and 59% of their marine area. It is important to recognize that even after this tremendous growth rate, only very small areas such as Contoy or Isabel Islands, can be considered to fulfill their baseline staffing needs and adequate management requires further important increases in staff. 6.2. Financing protected areas Total investment for protected areas is still hard to quantify. An analysis that provides an estimate of overall investment from different sectors, over a 3 year period (1997–1999) for 31 protected areas (only 9 of them coastal and marine) who were candidates for a second GEF protected area grant, estimated that a total of US $43.7 million dollars were invested on these areas, averaging $469,000 per area, 76% of them coming from national sources and 24% from foreign ones. The public sector provided 61%, NGOs 13%, the private sector 11%, research institutions 9.5% and the social sector 2.5% [14]. For comparison purposes, investment over a 4 year period (1998–2001) in four of the five coastal and marine protected areas covered by the first GEF grant, estimate that a total of $6.9 millions were invested, averaging $430,000 per area. The public sector provided 43%, interests from the Protected Area Fund 26%, NGOs 13%, the private sector 5%, multilaterals, bilaterals and the US Government 9% in this case and the social sector 4% [15]. The above mentioned Protected Area Fund is currently providing an average of over US $100,000 dollars per year to five coastal and marine protected area units, which through their administrative body manage six other protected areas. A second GEF grant that includes US $22.5 million in capital for the fund will cover 12 new protected areas, five of them coastal and marine. When completed, both projects will provide basic permanent financial coverage for 29% of Me´xico’s coastal and marine protected areas representing 49.5% of their surface area.

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During the last decade, federal investments for all protected areas increased from US $1.43 million in 1995 to $15.36 in 2000 [16]. In 2003 the National Protected Area Commission’s initial budget of US $22.88 million [17] was increased by the end of the year to $26.99 [18]. For 2004 an initial sum of US $22.57 was budgeted [18] and it is expected to increase to US $35.2 million [19]. The Legislative branch has recently submitted two Bills which are expected to significantly increase protected areas budget for 2005. Currently 33 coastal and marine protected areas have been assigned a federal budget through 24 administrative bodies. This means that 64% of them receive federal funds which can be invested to hire extra staff, acquire goods and services, pay for communication costs and office rent and so on, representing 98.5 of the coastal protected area surface area and 56% of the marine surface. Not withstanding this tremendous increment in funding, it is clear that it provides only a minimum operative base and is still insufficient to cover many pressing needs. One important future source of financial resources is the authority granted in 2002 to charge entrance fees in marine protected areas and recycle them for their operative needs. This authorization was based upon the National property status held by marine areas and was expanded in 2003 to include certain specific activities that take place in coastal and terrestrial ecosystems. To date 20 coastal and marine protected areas have received authorization from the fiscal authority (SHCP) to charge entrance fees, and 14 of them, 13 marine (aprox. US $2 per visitor) and 1 coastal (aprox. US $1 per visitor), have already implemented the system for collecting and recycling such fees. During 2002 approximately US $1.02 million were collected from marine protected areas and for 2003 it increased to US $2.28 [19]. A great number of local, regional, national and international NGOs and research institutions, support important activities within Mexican protected areas. These groups provide funding for or directly execute scientific and technological research and develop community development projects. One critically important component of this support system has been capacity building for protected area management, which has been the focus of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) activities in Mexican protected areas for over 15 years. TNC work is carried out through partnerships with national NGOs and the protected area administrative body. The Parks in Peril project, a long term USAID funded project that concentrates on capacity building, has resulted in the definition and use of a wide array of site planning and management tools, used in more than 14 Mexican coastal and marine protected areas. 6.3. Public participation and protected area management plans Participatory public planning processes have been incorporated into Mexican federal protected area governance, where most of their land surface portions are either within a communal or private property regime. Participatory processes are also required for their marine portions, in spite of the fact that all of Mexico’s Marine Zones are national property subject to federal jurisdiction due to the presence of valid stakeholders utilizing natural resources within their boundaries. This has been achieved through the establishment of participatory consultative

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bodies at the national level and for each protected area. Their purpose is to assist protected area establishment and management through a consensus building processes. Today the ‘‘National Protected Areas Council’’ provides input at the system level, while 41 of the 148 Mexican federal protected areas are supported by 44 ‘‘Advisory Councils’’ [20] covering 74% of their total surface area. Currently 29 of the 55 federal coastal and marine protected areas are supported by 25 Advisory Councils [20] representing 84% of their surface area. Nevertheless it is important to recognize that these councils are still at an embryonic stage and as any other democratic space created in Me´xico, they will still require a long social capacity building process towards their consolidation. One of the most important functions the Advisory Councils have today is their participation in the approval of their protected area ‘‘Management Plan’’. Currently 19 federal coastal and marine protected areas, representing 35% out of 55 areas have an approved management plan which covers 57% of their total surface area. 6.4. Enforcement capacity in protected areas Environmental law enforcement capacity is still at its infancy in Me´xico. This is especially true in coastal and marine habitats where access over very vast areas is hard to control. Enforcement responsibility falls within the jurisdiction of the Environmental Attorney (PROFEPA) within SEMARNAT. PROFEPA is in charge of compliance of land use restrictions imposed through OETs and of protected area regulations, attribution that CONANP’s staff has not been vested with. This situation further complicates enforcement activities in protected areas and diminishes efficacy of on site staff that need to call upon PROFEPA’s Inspectors, who in turn have to bring if the situation requires them, firearm bearing municipal, state or federal authorities with law enforcement jurisdiction. Notwithstanding the increased amount of resources and the developing capacity for coastal and marine protected management, these areas still are far from achieving the thresholds required for their minimum operational needs. Their planning instruments still need to be improved and their participatory processes need to be expanded and consolidated. Lack of enforcement capability is still a critically important issue that could be tackled more effectively with co-management processes. These efforts should not only be sustained over a longer period of time, but also substantially increased. This situation would increase coastal and marine protected role in the development of an ICM strategy for Me´xico.

7. Towards a Mexican coastal and marine protected area system It is evident that practically no individual protected area will be able to support the whole array of biodiversity that permanently or seasonally is present within it, if sustainable management of those external spaces used by species populations or those where physical or biological processes upon which they depend are not contemplated. This reality has generated a diverse set of solutions such as: the

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establishment of biological corridors, the use of environmentally sound land use land planning practices and the definition of functionally interconnected protected area systems, that contemplate spatial movement of species, function complementarily in their protected habitat diversity and include functional redundancy in case not all the sites can be effectively protected. This situation becomes even more evident in marine habitats, where dispersal of larvae, propagates or juveniles and their recruitment as reproductive adults, generally takes place over much larger geographical areas than terrestrial species. Me´xico is now working on two regional designs for coastal and marine protected area networks, one for Me´xico’s Caribbean Sea and the other one for the Gulf of California and the Southern Californian Pacific Ocean. The Mexican Caribbean protected area network is part of the Mesoamerican Caribbean Coral Reef Initiative and a product of a 10 year ‘‘reef characterization’’ project executed by Amigos de Sian Ka’an a local NGO. This network includes all previously established protected areas and three new ones with a total marine surface area of 56,868 ha: Arrecifes de Xaman-Ha (2 polygons: Pta Maroma 2024 ha and Tulum 12,044 ha); Arrecifes de la Costa Maya (2 polygons: Uaymil 23,958 ha and Majahual 6028 ha); Arrecifes de Cozumel (2 polygons: North 11,109 ha and the expansion of the existing polygon 1705 ha) [21]. Work is underway to define ‘‘Specially Important Areas for Coastal and Marine Biodiversity in the Gulf of California and the Baja Californian Pacific’’ [22] some of which could potentially become protected areas. This project is based upon the results of the ‘‘Workshop for the Definition of Conservation Priorities in the Gulf of California’’ convened by the Coalition for the Gulf of California Sustainability in May 2001. In this workshop over 180 regional, national and international experts, identified, analyzed and defined biologically important areas and their threats [23]. Results from the ‘‘Marine conservation at a regional scale: developing a sciencebased network of marine reserves in the Gulf of California’’ project [24], that used reef fish habitat as conservation targets and optimized the number and distribution of sites required for their protection [25], was incorporated into the portfolio. Resulting polygons were further refined excluding non-critical areas for biodiversity currently used by shrimp trawlers and specific fisheries regulations. Finally results from the meeting convened by the North America Commission for Environmental Cooperation to determine conservation priorities in the Baja to Bering region (B2B) were incorporated the portfolio in the Southern Californian Pacific Ocean. The recently developed framework of ‘‘Marine Ecological Regions of North America’’ [26], which provides a three level hierarchical system of classification, can now be used as the base for developing comprehensive regional protected area networks, carry out gap analysis and provide the base for natural resource use reporting and monitoring within ecologically significant regions, rather than political boundaries. This framework will facilitate Me´xico’s protected area systems design in the Gulf of Me´xico and the Pacific Ocean. Resulting portfolios should further refine general areas identified through the workshops convened by the National Commission for the Understanding and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) to identify ‘‘Priority Marine Regions of Me´xico’’ [27].

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Deriving from the Programme of Work on Protected Areas, adopted in 2004 at the 7th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Me´xico has undertaken a protected area gap analysis within a partnership established between Governmental institutions (CONANP, CONABIO and the National Institute of Ecology), international NGOs (CI, TNC and WWF) and national NGOs (Ducks Unlimited of Me´xico, the Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation and PRONATURA) that will include coastal and marine Protected areas. Currently TNC is leading the efforts in developing the Gulf of California and the Mesoamerican Reef ecoregional plans. With all these elements Me´xico will be ready to define and plan in order to be able to integrate a representative system of coastal and marine protected areas, capable of protecting its natural heritage and contributing to a global system.

8. Lessons learned 8.1. Operation of local and regional participatory coastal and ocean management spaces














Developing intergovernmental and public participatory processes is not an easy task. About 20% of the workload takes place during the actual participatory process meetings and 80% is invested in preparation and follow-up tasks that provides for the process credibility. Specific human and financial resources need to be allocated for these tasks. Existing environmental policy tools can be used to initiate ‘‘experiments’’ with intergovernmental and public participatory processes, which can later evolve into legally established tools. Lack of specific instruments should not deter public and private stakeholder participation. It is better to begin working with available tools and provide a legal framework after the process has been tested. With the public support gained through the initial processes, giving legal definition to other programs should be much easier. Intergovernmental and public participatory processes should be kept focused and simple in their infancy, both on the issues and the extent of the geographic spaces they deal with. Visible urgent issues can become the training ground for longer term vision issues. This is especially important in cultures where participation in public policy issues is new. Participatory capacity will be built faster by tackling common issues across stakeholder groups (e.g. deal with fisheries separate from tourism). Once these initial issues have been internally resolved they can be brought together to a joint forum and modified if needed. By this time stakeholders from each side will have a clearer view of their own issues and will be able to focus on the other side’s issues. Using on-site examples to demonstrate positive and negative impacts of regulatory measures can promote and enhance the participatory process. Public participation makes regulatory processes slower in the short term, but more durable over the long term.

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8.2. Creation of protected area management capacity and enhancing social participation












Protected area management capacity cannot be created overnight, through large infusion of funds, but rather requires sufficient time with enough resources to learn, experiment and consolidate. The presence of a basic staff body on the sites with basic operative funds is the first and single most important step that needs to be taken. Local presence in turn builds local support. Local support creates credibility that can become an important platform for leveraging not only conservation related funding, but also non-conservation related funds from other governmental agencies, that can be used to further the protected area objectives. No-take zones should only be established when the capacity to enforce and monitor these areas exists. Community established no-take zones should initially be created with a modest scope to increase the factors for implementation success. Once No-take Zones have proved that they can provide a service to the communities, they can be expanded to encompass larger and more remote areas. Protected areas can facilitate the development of intergovernmental and public participation processes because they provide manageable pilot projects with a specific geographic scope and a defined set of conservation objectives.

9. In press update On April and May 2005, five new Federal protected areas were established in Mexico. One of them coastal (Laguna Madre y Delta del Rı´ o Bravo Flora and Fauna Protection Area), two coastal and marine (Islas Marietas National Park and Isla Guadalupe, Biosphere Reserve), another exclusively marine (Archipie´lago San Lorenzo National Park) and one more strictly terrestrial (Bala0 am K0 aax Flora and Fauna Protection Area). This represents a new total of 153 Federal protected areas with updated legal status, occupying a total of 18,639,097 hectares. Thus the 59 coastal and marine protected areas in Mexico currently with a valid legal decree, occupy 12,903,327 ha (4,089,998 ha marine and 8,813,329 ha coastal) which represents 69% of Me´xico’s total protected area surface (including 19.5% of Mexico’s Territorial Sea, 10.4% of it’s Continental Platform and 1.3% of it’s Exclusive Economic Zone).

Acknowledgments This article is an updated and expanded version of paper presented at CZ 2003/ World Parks Congress—International Workshop, ‘‘Integrating Marine Protected Area Management with Coastal and Ocean Governance: Principles and Practices’’, convened by NOAA, IOC, WCPA-Marine, University of Delaware, University of

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Maryland, University of Rhode Island, National Estuarine Research Reserve Association, Coastal Zone 03, coastal States Organization, in Baltimore, Maryland, July 11–14, 2003. This article is dedicated to Dr. Ma´rio Lara Pe´rez Soto, who passed away in his house in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo on July 8th, 2003, after a valiant fight against Lou Gering’s disease. May he continue exploring eternal coral reefs of infinity in peace. The author wishes to thank Don Robadue for his invaluable suggestions and Pam Rubinnof, Joe Quiroz, and Rosario Alvarez for their support.

References [1] SEMARNAT—Secretarı´ a de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Ordenamieto Ecolo´gico del Territorio. Direccio´n General de Polı´ tica Ambiental e Integracio´n Regional Sectorial, Me´xico DF, 2002. http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/dgpairs/oe, 06/20/02. [2] INE—Instituto Nacional de Ecologı´ a—SEMARNAP. Estrategia Ambiental para la Gestio´n Integrada de la Zona Costera de Me´xico. Propuesta, Me´xico DF, 2000. [3] INE—Instituto Nacional de Ecologı´ a. Resumen de la Memoria Te´cnica del Ordenamiento Ecolo´gico del Mar de Corte´s. El Colegio de Me´xico A.C., Universidad Auto´noma de Baja California, 2003. http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/dgpairs/mcortes/bases.shtml, 01/09/2003 .pdf file. [4] CANAIPESCA—Ca´mara Nacional de la Industria Pesquera, Delegacio´n Sonora/Unio´n de Pesqueras de Guaymas. Amenazan la Pesca en el Golfo de California. Insercio´n pagada Reforma, El Imparcial, La Voz del Puerto, 12/05/2003. [5] SEMARNAT—Secretarı´ a de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. Golfo de California. Integracio´n de Resultados Direccio´n General de Polı´ tica Ambiental e Integracio´n Regional Sectorial. Me´xico DF, 2003. http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/dgpairs/mcortes/pubir.shtml 01/09/2003. [6] SEMARNAT. Convenio marco de coordinacio´n para la instrumentacio´n del proceso tendiente a la formulacio´n, la expedicio´n y la ejecucio´n del Programa de Ordenamiento Ecolo´gico Marino del Golfo de California, que suscriben las Secretarı´ as de Gobernacio´n, de Marina, de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, de Agricultura, Ganaderı´ a, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentacio´n, de Comunicaciones y Transportes y de Turismo, con la participacio´n de los Ejecutivos de los estados libres y soberanos de Baja California, Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Sinaloa y Sonora, 2004. [7] SEMARNAT. Acuerdo de cooperacio´n para la instrumentacio´n de un proceso de Ordenamiento Ecolo´gico Costero Terrestre en la regio´n del Golfo de California con el fin de asegurar el desarrollo sustentable de la regio´n, que suscriben por una parte los Ejecutivos de los estados libres y soberanos de Baja California, Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Sinaloa y Sonora y por la otra parte el poder ejecutivo de la unio´n, por conducto de las Secretarı´ as de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales asistido en este acto por el Subsecretario de Planeacio´n y Polı´ tica Ambiental, de Agricultura, Ganaderı´ a, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca asistido por el Comisionado Nacional de Pesca y Acuacultura y de Turismo, con la participacio´n del Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, en calidad de testigo de honor, 2004. [8] Bezaury-Creel J, Lo´pez-Santos C, McCann J, Molina C, Rubinoff P, Goddard T, Robadue D, Hale L. Participatory coastal and marine management in Quintana Roo, Me´xico. In: Dight I, Kenchington R, Baldwing J, editors. Proceedings of the International Tropical Marine Ecosystems Management Symposium (ITMEMS), Townsville, Qld. Australia, November, 1998, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, p. 163–171. 452pp. http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/info_services/publications/ itmems/pdf/itmems_163-171_s03_3.pdf. [9] Villalba A, Robadue D. Just in time: conservation and development strategy for Santa Maria Bay. Intercoast 42. Fall 2002. Focus on Decentralization. Narragansett: Coastal Resources Center, University of Rhode Island; 2002.

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Further Reading [1] Bezaury-Creel JE. El papel de las organizaciones civiles nacionales e internacionales en la proteccio´n de los oce´anos. en Rodrı´ guez M.C., C. Herna´ndez (compiladores), Oce´anos Fuente inagotable de Recursos? Memorias de la VII Reunio´n Anual del Programa Universitario del Medio Ambiente. PUMA-UNAM, SEMARNAP, 1999. (p. 281–305) 589pp. [2] Bezaury-Creel JE. El Papel de las Organizaciones no Gubernamentales y la Participacio´n Social en la Conservacio´n de los Arrecifes Coralinos en Me´xico. Memorias de la Reunio´n Arrecifes Coralinos, Riqueza Marina Amenazada. UNAM—Programa Universitario de Medio Ambiente, SEMARNAPProcuradurı´ a Federal de Proteccio´n al Ambiente, Instituto Nacional de Pesca, Comisio´n Nacional para el Conocimiento y uso de la Biodiversidad CONABIO, Disco Compacto, 1999. [3] Bezaury-Creel J. Mitigating the Effects of Coastal Development on the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve: A Case Example from Me´xico. MPAs News, 2002;4(2):5. [4] Bezaury-Creel J. Land and Sea Use Planning and Protected Areas as Regional Instruments for Sustainability. Paper presented at the V World Parks Congress. WCPA–IUCN. Workshop Stream 4-Developing the Capacity to Manage PA. Durban, South Africa, 2003. [5] Bezaury-Creel JE. Las Areas Naturales Protegidas Costeras y Marinas de Me´xico. In: Rivera-Arriaga E, Villalobos-Zapata G, Rosado-May F, Azuz-Adeath I, editors. El Manejo Costero en Me´xico, Parte III Proteccio´n de la Zona Costera, Universidad Auto´noma de Campeche, SEMARNAT, CETYSUniversidad, Universidad de Quintana Roo. 654 p. 2004.