New Workshop on Mexican Mangrove Conservation PRWeb
go to original March 10, 2013

Cancun itself is evidence of the threats facing our planet. A growing tourism industry in the city is killing off mangroves, natural fighters of climate change. Al Jazeera Mariana Sanchez reports. (AlJazeeraEnglish)

CANCUN, Mexico - Thirty-six percent of Mexican mangroves have been changed or replaced, and the Yucatan’s Peninsula, home of 55% of them, also presents great damage on these costal ecosystems, caused by non-organized tourism, over-exploitation of species and human settlements.

On the workshop titled “Introduction to the Management and Conservation of Mangroves” organized by the tourist group Sunset World Resorts & Vacation Experiences to commemorate World Wetlands Day, the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) in Mexico, added that the state of Quintana Roo have the second place on mangrove territory with 16%, only behind Campeche.

This course, given jointly with another Mexican agency, the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp), was directed to students of the Environmental Engineering, Sustainable Tourism and Hotel Management degrees of Universidad del Caribe. One of the main points of the workshop was that mangroves are endangered not only in Mexico, but internationally by other factors like water pollution, coastal erosion, natural disasters and climate change.

“50% of the world’s wetlands have been changed, and a great part of the other 50% is deteriorated. Specifically in Mexico, around 64% of mangroves are still untouched, but we have changed or replaced 36% of them,” pointed out the biologist Teresa Jimenez, head of the Environmental Education department of Semarnat.

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