Cancun, QRoo.- The Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development (Sedatu) published today in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) the agreement to transfer to the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp) a total of 8,451 hectares that until now belonged to the reserve of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere in Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
“The Ministry of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development makes available to the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas, of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, the surface of 8,451-61-96.55 hectares, of Polygon 2 Bis, of the Reserve property of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere, municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, state of Quintana Roo,” reads the agreement signed by Dulce María Rodríguez Cervantesdirector of Rural Property Regulation in the sedatu.
The lands ceded to the conanp they border to the west with the ejido Chunyaxchéwhere the Tulum International Airport is currently being built, so speculation has already begun to suggest that this measure could have the purpose of providing land for this government project.
However, Gonzalo Merediz, director of the civil association Friends of Sian Ka’anensures that the fact that this portion of land passes to the conanp it only reinforces the conservation vocation that had already been granted to the area with the 1986 decree by which the Protected Natural Area (ANP) of sian ka’an.
The environmental activist assures that although it was already a conservation area, with the transfer to the hands of Conanp, the land is shielded against real estate interests that for years have tried to spread inside the reserve.
“It ratifies the destination of these national lands to Conanp, it is land owned by the nation that at the time was demarcated a few years ago by the then Secretariat of Agrarian Reform, and now its vocation is ratified through this publication a nature reserve,” he said.
Merediz insisted that this strip of land could serve as a buffer zone for the sian ka’an reservein addition to benefiting with legal certainty about the vocation of the land to the communities of the ecotourism destination known as mayakan.
Importance of Sian Ka’an
With 36 years of life, the reserve has an area of 528,148 hectares. Together with the Uaymil Flora and Fauna Protection Area and the Arrecifes de sian ka’an The Sian Ka’an Complex is formed with an area of 652, 192.97 hectares and they share a single management program. They are located in the municipalities of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Tulum, Bacalar and Othón P. Blanco, in the center and south of Quintana Roo.
sian ka’an It contains nine ecosystems, three aquatic habitats, 120 kilometers of the Mesoamerican Reef System, which includes four countries: Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, and is also the habitat for a large number of resident and migratory birds, such as the rare Jabiru (Jabiru mycteria), the largest stork in the American continent that nests in the area, as well as four endangered species: the jaguar, the tapir, the manatee and the peccary, according to data from the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp).
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