Members meet to create management plan for Yum Balam
Cancun, Q.R. — Members from several boards met in Cancun Thursday to create a management plan for Yum Balam.
At the request of the Pedro and Elena Hernández Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Area of Protection of Flora and Fauna of Yum Balam met to discuss advancements in the analysis of the area.
Independent Canadian firm, Stantec, has been contracted to provide another analysis of Yum Balam after board members found a contradiction in the analysis provided by Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas.
Alejandro de Jesús Valdez Guzmán, president of the advisory board, explained that the objective is to have the management plan before the current federal administration ends.
He says it is the third party that will be in charge of investigating the results of the two investigations presented, on the one hand by Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, which presents very different results than those they did independently.
“They will review all this information and they will issue a result with the information of the two parties. They will use the best that each study has and issue a diagnosis.
“It is an internationally recognized Canadian company. They have done many similar projects around the world. The idea is that they help us finish this process,” he added.
He said it would be toward the end of August when there could be a resolution that could lead to the approval of a Yum Balam Management Plan and end the more than 20 years of lack of definition.
Ricardo Gómez Lozano, general director of the Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas in the Mexican Peninsula and Caribbean, reiterated that it is necessary to review the existing technical information in order to look for development options, and the Council will review the progress to verify that it is complying with the request.
“A technical group is being set up, constituted by Academia. What they would be doing is reviewing the information. It is a process of knowledge and who has to make the decision of the incorporation or not of that information is the Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas itself.
“All these processes will be presented to the institution who will make the decision,” he added.
Already this year, several real estate projects have been shut down by federal authorities due to lack of permits as officials say the area lacks a building management plan. They say this is part of the reason the infrastructure in the town of Holbox collapsed last year.
