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The Environmentalism of the Rich and the Privatization of Nature: High-End Tourism on the Mexican Coast Patricia Ávila-García and Eduardo Luna Sánchez Latin American Perspectives 2012 39: 51 originally published online 12 September 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X12459329

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The Environmentalism of the Rich and the Privatization of Nature High-End Tourism on the Mexican Coast by Patricia Ávila-García and Eduardo Luna Sánchez Translated by Victoria J. Furio

As social property and resources formerly open to common use, such as beaches and coastal lakes, have been privately appropriated, an environmental discourse has arisen among national and transnational elites that justifies this appropriation in terms of conservation and even shapes environmental policies for their benefit. One example is the creation of natural protected areas in zones of predominantly private property, giving them exclusive rights and increasing real estate values and investments in tourism. As a result, tourist paradises have sprung up in places of high biodiversity, offering exclusivity to their owners and clients while violating agrarian rights, creating social conflict, and destroying ecosystems.

Frente a un escenario de apropiación privada de espacios otrora de propiedad social y recursos de uso común como playas y lagunas costeras, ha surgido un discurso ecologista de las élites nacionales y transnacionales que justifica esta apropriación por medio de acciones de conservación e incluso orienta las políticas ambientales para su beneficio. Un ejemplo es la creación de áreas naturales protegidas en zonas donde predomina la propiedad privada, con el fin de dar exclusividad y valorizar las inversiones inmobiliarias y turísticas. Como resultado, han surgido paraísos turísticos en lugares de alta biodivers- idad que ofrecen exclusividad a sus propietarios y usuarios pero que afectan derechos agrarios, generan conflictos sociales y destruyen ecosistemas.

Keywords: Environmentalism, Privatization, High-end tourism, Environmental policy, Mexican coast

The plunder and private appropriation of natural resources is nothing new in Mexico. In colonial times, the initial accumulation of capital was made possible by the dismantling of indigenous people’s territories and the pillage of their natural resources for the benefit of the Spanish metropolis (Galeano, 1979). What is striking in contemporary times is the speed and intensity of the privatization of once-common resources and social property and the deteriora- tion of the natural environment. Privatization of communally owned (ejido)

Patricia Ávila-García is researcher in Political Ecology and Society of the Ecosystems Research Center at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Campus Morelia, and Eduardo Luna Sánchez is a research associate of the same institution. They are grateful for the support for this investigation received from the National Council on Science and Technology, in particular SEP- CONACYT grant no. 50955, “Desarrollo interdisciplinario de modelos conceptuales y herramien- tas metodológicas para el estudio de los servicios ecosistémicos: El caso de la cuenca del Río Cuixmala,” coordinated by Patricia Balvanera. Victoria J. Furio is a freelance translator living in New York City. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 187, Vol. 39 No. 6, November 2012 51-67 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X12459329 © 2012 Latin American Perspectives

51 52 Latin American Perspectives lands and common assets (beaches and wetlands) and the disruption of ecosystems as a result of the development of tourist and real estate projects are just a small part of what is happening today on the Mexican coast. This essay docu- ments the privatization of strategic resources such as water, land, and beaches by transnational and national elites in Costa Alegre, Jalisco. It analyzes the power relationships involved in this process and the dynamic role played by the state in promoting tourism investment and private real estate, disregarding its effects on the rights of campesinos and fishermen and their survival and social reproduction. Costa Alegre is located on Mexico’s Pacific coast between Puerto Vallarta and Barra de Navidad and between the Chamela and Cuixmala Rivers. It is known for its concentration of beautiful landscapes, great biodiversity, and mosaic of land ownership forms, predominantly ejidos. It has small rural towns inhabited by campesinos and fishermen and tourist and low-density residential zones enjoyed by national and transnational elites. The study of the situa- tion in Costa Alegre involved an analysis based on documentary and field research on social and political processes with local and global dimensions. Bibliographical sources on the issue under study and the region were exam- ined, and ethnographic fieldwork was conducted that included observation on site visits (ejidos and communities; coastal zones and mangrove swamps; hotels, residential areas, and the Careyes polo grounds; the university station, the biosphere reserve, and the Cuixmala ranch) and in-depth interviews with key informants (leaders of fishermen and social activists, agrarian officials, members of the transnational elites, academics, and environmental organizations) in the course of four field visits (March and July–August 2009, January and November 2010). For space reasons and to protect the informants, direct quotes and specific references regarding their identities are omitted.

The Analytical Approach

Our approach to the problem employed the notions of accumulation by dispossession, the neoliberalization of nature, the environmentalism of the rich, and high-end tourism.

Accumulation By Dispossession

The rise of the neoliberal economic model in Mexico beginning in the 1980s opened up unique opportunities for privatization and foreign investment in fields such as agriculture, industry, mining, tourism, real estate promotion, and the provision of services. The state played a significant role in promoting the structural, institutional, and legal changes necessary to consolidate the new model of globalization and the free market, which favored primarily the national and transnational business elites associated with industrial, financial, and commercial capital. At the same time, it withdrew in strategic areas linked to social welfare policy such as education, health, and public services, and new actors, third-sector or nongovernmental organizations that partially fulfilled some of these functions, emerged (Ávila, 1998). Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 53

The social and environmental costs of the model were seen as externalities or “necessary evils” on the road to capitalist accumulation and incorporation into the globalized economy. However, the neoliberal wave generated an increase in social resistance and alternative movements led by civil society in its various collective and national expressions (Riechmann and Fernández, 1994) that influenced the notions of democracy and citizen participation in the framework of postmodern society. All this is reflected in a new modality of capitalist imperialism in its neoliberal phase: accumulation by dispossession. One of its various forms is the original accumulation described by Marx, which persists today through “the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations; the conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights; the suppression of rights to the commons” (Harvey, 2003: 155). Another form is the depredation of global environmental assets and environmental degradation by returning common and social property rights to the private domain. “The escalating depletion of global environmental commons (land, air, water) and proliferating habitat degradation that preclude anything but capital- intensive modes of agricultural production have likewise resulted from the wholesale commodification of nature in all its forms” (Harvey, 2003: 158). This idea is linked to another, more specific one related to the role played by nature (natural resources, territories) in the neoliberal model and in particular to the new environmental rationale imposed by the state and the transnational and national elites in the context of the capitalist system—the neoliberalization of nature.

The Neoliberalization of Nature

The idea of the neoliberalization of nature (Castree, 2008) allows us to analyze capitalism’s new modalities by simplifying and reifying the biophysical world and therefore nature as if it were a commodity or service (environmental or ecosystemic) and part of “natural capital.” To do so it is necessary to modify, distort, and even attack property rights and social norms regarding access to and use of natural resources. Thus nature has entered into the market, where it is offered and acquired by different clients through monetary and financial transactions. Everything has been reduced to business, and this has paved the way for the development of the environmental economy and the assignment of a value and a price both to nature and to the environmental impacts it generates as externalities of the economic model. Within the framework of the greening of capitalism, mechanisms of compensation for natural assets have arisen that are nothing more than a fetishiza- tion and perversion of the biophysical world: an ecosystem is destroyed to promote a region’s economic growth (for example, with a tourist project in a mangrove zone), and a tiny fraction of it is restored in another ecosystem or a natural protected area is created in a zone with less biodiversity to mitigate the environmental damage. The assessment of the environmental impact operates on this logic, and this explains why many tourist projects in zones of great ecological value have been approved with conditions (compensation measures and damage mitigation) that are easily met. 54 Latin American Perspectives

In order to analyze the various forms of neoliberalization of nature in different national and regional contexts, Castree (2010: 29) proposes examining its economic, social, and environmental dimensions. He sees the social and environmental impacts associated with this process as varied and dependent on the context, but he points out that

in various situations, economic growth has disproportionately benefited private sector actors; economic efficiency has been achieved at the expense of social equity and justice; a very particular kind of development, one that does not reflect the full range of development thinking, has been achieved; democracy has been neutered; and sustainability has been realized, but only to the extent that it is consistent with the peculiarities of private property rights and market pricing.

The Environmentalism of the Rich

As a way to soften the socio-environmental impacts generated by the neoliberal model and counteract the power of the new social movements, actors have emerged that are part of or linked to transnational and national elites and influence public policy associated with the neoliberalization of nature. This is what we call “the environmentalism of the rich,” and it is the antithesis of what Martínez-Alier (1992; 2009) has called the “environmentalism of the poor,” the social struggle for survival in a framework of environmental justice in the face of capital’s assault on nature (Martínez-Alier, 2009: 12):

The social movements of the poor are struggles for survival and are therefore environmental movements . . . because their objectives are the ecological neces- sities of life. . . . They are also environmental movements because they usually try to maintain or return natural resources to the ecological economy, outside the system of market values and commercial rationales, thus contributing to the conservation of natural resources, which are undervalued by the market.

In contrast to the environmentalism of the poor, the environmentalism of the rich has as its goal strengthening the power of the elites in the environmental camp by influencing decision making and shaping public policy to its advantage. In addition, it seeks assurances regarding the ownership of strategic natural resources and aims to influence their use through ecological planning and the creation of natural protected areas. In the same vein, it seeks to take over communal resources such as water, beaches, and wetlands by obtaining concessions in perpetuity in public property zones that affect the ways of life of rural and indigenous people and weaken their collective institutions. In other words, the environmentalism of the rich aims to legitimize and secure the economic interests of the elite by adopting an environmental discourse and ecological rationales (such as conservation, the adoption of clean technologies, organic food production, and the mitigation of environmental damage) that do not structurally disturb the logic of capitalist accumulation. The configuration of the environmentalism of the rich as a social subject is shaped by the direct or indirect participation of economic elites who can pur- sue support from and alliances with the political, cultural, and scientific elites to guarantee the privileges granted by the state and thus impose their projects and vision on the rest of society. What is new about the environmentalism of the rich Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 55 is that it refines the strategy of dominance, since modern actors such as founda- tions and nongovernmental and academic organizations tied to the interests of the elites are capable of making the illegal legal through intellectual effort, political lobbying, and links to decision makers. These groups rely on legitimizing discourses such as the environmental one to secure their economic interests and paint over the destruction of ecosystems and the appropriation of social and public lands (Ávila, 1998; Riechmann and Fernández, 1994). Holmes (2010) points out that conservation on the international level is determined by a small but very powerful elite organized through networks of influential individuals with a presence in international environmental organizations. For his part, Hall (2011) indicates that some magnates and international nongovernmental organizations have made important economic investments through the purchase of large tracts of land in Argentina (Patagonia) and Brazil (the Amazon) to create ecological conservation zones as national parks and natural protected areas. Although these writers demon- strate the influence of these transnational elites on environmental issues, they do not discuss their possible economic interest in investing in land in regions of the world that concentrate high biodiversity, scenic beauty, and strategic natural resources such as water, petroleum, and minerals.

High-End Tourism

High-end tourism is an activity aimed at the most privileged sectors of society because of their economic power, political influence, and prestige. What it offers is access to pristine and exclusive places, breaking with the traditional model of mass tourism and directed more toward ecotourism with a high- comfort and hedonistic dimension. It focuses on well-preserved areas of the planet that provide guarantees for private investors and their visitors. Some of these areas are located in countries with poor economies or economies in transition, which see private investment as an opportunity to create jobs and therefore offer potential investors opportunities such as tax exemptions, relaxed environmental law enforcement, and public investment to attract them to their countries. Lacking any assessment of their environmental and social impacts and their contribution to regional development, tourist projects unleash dis- putes between elites and local actors over the control of strategic resources. In the context of globalization, Harvey (1998) and Mowforth and Munt (1998) indicate that a new tourism linked to post-Fordian accumulation has emerged that seeks alternatives for recreation and the use of free time such as sustainable tourism or ecotourism. This is a result of a space-time compression leading to more flexible forms of accumulation and new patterns of consump- tion. Out of this has arisen a high- and medium-income class that is associated with the service, financial, or commercial sector and is interested in traveling but in a different way from most of the population: it values pristine and well- preserved natural places without giving up the comfort of good food and lodging. The high price of this option makes it available only to a limited number of tourists. This type of tourism could create an “eco-colonialism” similar to what occurs, for example, with safaris and visits to Masai villages in Kenya or trips through the Barrancas del Cobre and visits to the Tarahumara caves in Mexico (Ávila, 2007; Mowforth and Munt, 1998). This is because external agents 56 Latin American Perspectives

(transnational tourist companies) establish power relations and control over the area and are the economic beneficiaries of this activity. The local population is relegated to observer status or at most participates as handicraft sellers (as in the Tarahumara case) or performers in dance and song fests held nightly in luxury hotels or in daytime visits to their villages (as with the Masai). In high-end tourism there are other, more cosmopolitan options for those who are looking for exclusive places in which the aristocracy, the upper classes, and celebrities gather, such as the Mediterranean tourist centers (Cannes, the Greek islands), the Persian Gulf (Dubai), and the Caribbean (the British Virgin Islands) and exclusive hotels in countries with poor economies or economies in transition (Punta del Este in Uruguay, Los Cabos in Mexico, Fiji’s private islands, the Golden Eye in Jamaica). In those areas they find a series of activities associated with hedonism (sex, food, drink, exclusive parties, etc.) that are ideal for intensifying sensory pleasures. There is also a supply of real estate that allows elites to acquire villas and residences for their enjoyment during certain seasons of the year. The very rich even own entire islands in the Pacific or huge plots of land along the coast. This leads to another form of tourism in which the owners of these properties invite their friends and celebrities among the transnational elites to strengthen their social ties and economic and political relations.

Accumulation By Dispossession in Costa Alegre

Costa Alegre is a region rich in natural resources and, as is apparent from the evidence of shell middens, shaft tombs, petroglyphs, and ceramics (Mountjoy, 1982), has been inhabited since pre-Hispanic times. During the colonial era, the indigenous population was devastated demographically, and those who sur- vived retreated to higher elevations in areas of tropical deciduous forest (Rodríguez, 1989). A good portion of their lands, especially along the coastal strip and in the fertile river valleys, was taken over by the Spaniards and later privatized by the new Mexican government to benefit ranchers, large landowners, politicians, and the military (Muriá, 1980). Until the mid-twentieth century, the region had a low demographic density because of its difficult climatic and environmental conditions (swamps and rugged vegetation full of mosquitoes and poisonous wildlife) and the lack of access roads. During the 1940s and especially in the 1950s a colonization policy called “the March to the Sea” was launched in Mexico’s coastal zones. The idea was to populate and create ejidos in coastal areas considered strategic for national security. Costa Alegre was colonized under this policy (Castillo, 1991). This period had its share of social tensions over land. The cacique Rodolfo Paz, the owner of large tracts of land in Cuixmala and El Rebalsito de Apazulco, was the terror of the coast because of his violence and his exploitation of the workers on his properties (Ramírez, 1989). The power he achieved was due to the support of two governors of Jalisco, General Marcelino García Barragán (1943–1947) and José González Gallo (1947–1951). He later provided the inspi- ration for the character “El Amarillo” in the novel Tierra pródiga by Agustín Yáñez, also a governor of Jalisco (Tello, 2010; Yáñez, 1984 [1960]). At the time, Paz was considered “crazy” because he wanted the coast and Tenacatita in particular to become an exclusive paradise for high-level tourists, with huge Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 57 buildings and modern infrastructure (Tello, 2010). He died without seeing this happen, but he laid the groundwork for its development in the decades that followed. Most of the ejidos along the coast were established in the 1960s. This process did not long continue because the government was more interested in shoring up private property and giving assurances to the new investors. To this end it set aside tracts of the coastal strip for tourist projects such as Puerto Vallarta and Barra de Navidad. The best lands were distributed to politicians and the military. During the 1970s the development of the region received new impetus with the construction of the Barra de Navidad–Puerto Vallarta highway and a federal cattle-ranching policy that led to the destruction of significant stretches of forest. As a result, the population began to grow, and requests for ejidos became a threat to uncultivated private properties. The strategy of the landowners in response to this was to break up their properties by titling relatives or friends or even through donations, as in the case of a lot near Chamela that today is occupied by the biology station of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

The Neoliberalization of Nature and The Environmentalism of the Rich in Costa Alegre

Foreign presence in the region began to be more evident after the completion of the highway. Formerly inaccessible lands increased in value, and acquisition and speculation in land on the coastal strip began. The method employed was the formation of trusts and the use of borrowed names, since the General Law on National Assets forbade the acquisition of coastal lands by foreigners. The intermediaries were experts in corrupting public institutions and local actors. Luis de Rivera, for example, was a Spaniard related by marriage to the Bolivian magnate Antenor Patiño, a friend of President Luis Echeverría, an investor in an ambitious tourist venture in Manzanillo known as Las Hadas and owner of an extensive ranch near the Colima volcano. De Rivera met the Italian business- man Gianfranco Brignone in 1968 and invited him to visit Costa Alegre. Brignone was so impressed by the place when he flew over it by helicopter that he literally “bought from up in the air, without setting foot on the ground” (Tello, 2006: 36). The acquisition of land took very little time but was not free of conflict and local resistance, mostly from the campesinos and fishermen who worked the land, the marshes, and the beaches. With the power of money, people were bought off, and the elites managed to acquire large tracts of land on the coastal strip for negligible amounts and, through the power of the state, decrees of immunity to expropriation that gave foreign investors full assurance that no ejidos would ever be established there. This was the beginning of the privatization of Costa Alegre despite its constitutional prohibition. Brignone acquired vast tracts of the coastal strip, such as Playa Blanca, Playa Rosa, and Playa Careyitos, as well as the Península de las Estrellas. All of these lands came from ejido projects that did not materialize as a result and small properties broken up by individuals who were taking advantage of the first privatization wave on the coast during the 1940s and 1950s. Shortly thereafter the Italian obtained 58 Latin American Perspectives a legal guarantee that his private property would not be affected: the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization issued a certificate to this effect, signed by then-President Luis Echeverria, for the Careyitos premises. This allowed for real estate and tourist investment to take place. The first to build, in the early 1970s, was Club Med, an exclusive worldwide hotel chain frequented by the jet set. With the sale of the Careyes property to the transnational, the Italian began construction of the Hotel Plaza Careyes, which opened three years later (Tello, 2006). This tourist and development project was a success, and the transnational elite arrived: the European aristocracy, American and European magnates, world-famous writers, artists, and musicians, and trend-setting designers and models, among others. This project contrasted with the tourist-promotion policies implemented in the 1960s and 1970s, when the government played a cen- tral role in acquiring social property through expropriation and the establishment of trusts, such as the mass tourism in Puerto Vallarta and Barra de Navidad and the high-end tourism in Acapulco Dorado and Cancún (Bringas, 1999; González, Pérez, and Rivera, 2008). The tourism model insti- tuted in the area of Manzanillo (Las Hadas) and Costa Alegre (Careyes)— high-end tourism aimed at powerful national and international people seeking exclusivity and hedonism—had been successful in Acapulco in the 1950s. What was new was the driving force of private and foreign investors and the significant support of the state (privatization of the land, legal guarantees for their projects, provision of infrastructure) for their tourist and development investments. Many members of the transnational elite became devoted visitors to this pristine region, where the scenic beauty of its beaches, mangrove swamps, and cliffs, combined with its exquisite contemporary architecture, was the ideal environment for hedonism: solitary and peaceful places, nudist beaches with beautiful people, unforgettable parties with bonfires and limitless entertain- ment, hunting on coastal lakes, and polo events on fields built in the rainforest (Ortiz-Pinchetti, 1997; Tello, 2006). Other visitors became owners of luxury homes in the exclusive section of Rincón Careyes, built between the cliffs and the rainforest. Over time they managed to create a global and cosmopolitan community with famous people from 42 countries that came to be called the “Pacific Principality” (Tello, 2006). One of Brignone’s most important connections, which marked the future of the zone, was with his old friend the Anglo-French magnate James Goldsmith, founder of the General Occidental food group and Grand Union, the largest supermarket chain in the United States (Beaudeux, 1988). Goldsmith was looking for a place to spend his retirement years, and his family relationship to the magnate Antenor Patiño led him to Mexico’s Pacific coast. Upon Patiño’s death his granddaughter, Isabel Goldsmith, inherited property near the Colima volcano (the El Jabalí ranch and the former San Antonio hacienda) and in Costa Alegre (Las Alamandas), and this is how Brignone came to invite him to visit Careyes. Once again the intermediary was Luis de Rivera, who saw to finaliz- ing Goldsmith’s real estate investments in Cuixmala, adjacent to Careyes in the valley of the Cuixmala River and surrounded by wetlands and beaches. In order to take over these lands, he had to surmount several legal obstacles—first Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 59 buying the Cuixmala estate from its private owners and then acquiring the neighboring ejidal lands through irregular transactions—but nothing proved impossible for him. By the mid-1980s Goldsmith had achieved his objective, the acquisition of more than 10,000 hectares of forest, mangrove swamps, and beaches. He converted the 800-hectare estate, formerly the Cuixmala hacienda, into his private residence and built a sumptuous mansion with a 180-degree view of the Pacific Ocean (Ortega, 1989). He also built several residences and villas to house distinguished guests such as Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, and Madonna. He transformed the ranch into gar- dens and organic farming parcels. The entire surrounding area of tropical deciduous forest bordering his estate was acquired at minimal cost, and there he reproduced the pattern used for the ranch at El Jabalí in Colima: appropriat- ing social property (through purchase or pillage) and communal resources (wetlands, beaches) and having them declared a natural protected area to seal them off from human predators (Ortíz-Pinchetti, 1997). With the reforms to Article 27 of the Constitution in 1992, the winds became even more favorable for private and foreign investors: the best lands of the ejidos and indigenous communities were subjected to pressure to sell. Businessmen and real estate speculators acquired enormous tracts of forest and wetlands on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts in tourist zones such as Acapulco Diamante, Huatulco, Nuevo Vallarta, and Costa Maya with the aim of appro- priating their natural beauty and guaranteeing the exclusiveness of their tourist and real estate investments. The means to achieve this aim were varied, from co-opting ejido leaders and deceiving campesinos and dazzling them with money to violation of the law and the use of violence when local resistance was strong. In all this the businessmen certainly had the consent and support of politicians and public officials as well as members of the police, who saw to repressing and pacifying the desires of the ejido and communal landowners. As a result, most of the Jalisco coast was privatized in less than a decade, and the neoliberalization of nature took shape with the new tourist projects. The entrepreneurs sought to eliminate any possible threat to their investments from the ejido owners and future land-seekers. Thus the agrarian conflicts between the localities of Francisco Villa and Zapata were never resolved, since the disputed lands were located in the valley of the Cuixmala River, an area of great interest to Goldsmith. Nor was there any progress on the ejido project in Valle de Allende, adjacent to his property, where a presidential reso- lution granting the land to ejido owners was never implemented. In the Valle de Allende case, De Rivera went to the ejido owners and offered to buy a portion of their land, pointing to the uncertainty due to the lack of execution of their titles and the threat of the creation of a natural protected area. After long discussions, the campesinos agreed to sell and signed, without reading it, a contract ceding their rights, only to find that it specified the sale of 100 percent of their land, including the land they lived on. A few weeks later, an eviction order arrived: the new owner (Goldsmith) was demanding possession of the property and with the help of private security guards (guardias blancas) forced the campesinos to leave. Their houses were immediately set ablaze to erase evidence of the existence of any human settlement in the future Chamela Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve. Goldsmith had already tested this method on his 60 Latin American Perspectives

El Jabalí ranch, using security guards to prevent the fishermen from using a swamp (federal property) on the edge of his land that they had fished for decades (Robles, 1989). In the 1990s the environmentalist discourse became an excellent weapon for fighting campesinos and fishermen, who were seen as the cause of natural disasters because of practices that allegedly placed the forests, mangrove swamps, and coasts at risk. Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” and the cata- strophic visions of Malthus and the Club of Rome became part of the discourse of the modern environmentalist entrepreneurs. According to this logic, social property and communal assets were the problem and ought to disappear through privatization and rational individualism. These magnates seem to have been unaware of the difference that Ostrom (2000) identifies between open-access and common-use resources, the former (air, oceans, and glaciers) being unregulated and the latter (land, forests, and water) regulated by local institutions and collective organizations to guarantee their availability over time. Thus the discussion transcended the issue of land ownership, and the justification for privatizing (to save the land) was merely a means to another end: accumulation by dispossession. The easiest path for the transnational elites was to adopt the government’s environmentalist discourse and promote the creation of natural protected areas (use of grounds strictly for conservation), which would prevent what they considered their depredation by the local inhabitants. For this it was not enough to privatize the land and its waters; they also sought to eliminate community assets and restrict, by means of official regulations such as decrees of ecological protection and denials of usage concessions, the right to use and enjoy them. The new owners of “Tierra Pródiga” (Yáñez, 1984 [1960]) transnational elites, used various political resources to secure their objectives in the environmental realm. Goldsmith’s friends pledged solidarity with his environmentalist cause: more than 300 magnates, artists, and politicians (including former U.S. presi- dents) signed a letter published in the New York Times in November 1992 con- gratulating the Mexican government in advance for the new natural protected area on the Jalisco coast. The international pressure was effective; a week later the creation of the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, stretching over more than 13,000 hectares and predominantly in private hands (mostly Goldsmith’s), was announced. This decree prohibited all productive and extractive human activity in the core (ecologically best-preserved) zone and placed restrictions on the reserve’s buffer zones, but it allowed for low-density tourist development and the divi- sion of the core zone into four areas, excluding Goldsmith’s private paradise, to be managed at his discretion. The residential complex was located in a zone of high ecological value, with fertile lands close to a river, mangrove swamps, coastal lakes, and an extensive beach. With no restrictions, he carried out activities of high environmental impact that in theory should not have taken place because it was a reserve. He brought exotic species such as zebras and ante- lopes into the Mexican rainforest and spurred the increase in the number of crocodiles in the wetlands. (The fishermen say that he introduced a very aggres- sive African species that caused an unusual number of attacks on local people.) He altered the hydrological functioning of the marshes and coastal lake by building a system of dams with floodgates that controlled the flow of water. Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 61

This had an impact on fishing on federal property (the river and the lake) by blocking the natural entry and exit of fish and altering the salinity of the water. His goal was to regulate the level of water in the wetlands to avoid their drying out at certain seasons of the year and thus to have artificial lakes on his estate. He created a greenbelt around his residential complex by setting aside forest lands for conservation and environmental research. To provide institutional support and legitimacy to his environmental actions, in 1988 he created the Cuixmala Ecological Foundation, a kind of nongovernmental organization that coordinated the research activities of the UNAM’s biology station. This alliance was very useful for his conservationist ends and served as a shield against any future presence of invaders (ejido owners) or economic projects (mass tourism) that diverged from his interests. Unprecedented in Mexico, this was one of the first biosphere reserves established on private property. It created tensions with the local population, since, in contrast to the rest of the country’s reserves, it was entirely inaccessible. The fishermen were those most affected, since they had always fished along the river and in the coastal lakes, which were the property of the nation and whose use was constitutionally communal. Even the UNAM’s scientists needed permis- sion from the director of the foundation to enter the reserve. Security guards and even armed state police kept fishermen and campesinos from traveling their traditional paths to reach community property (the marshes and the beach). Five years after the creation of the biosphere reserve, the adoption of ecological territorial rules for the Jalisco coast (January 15, 1999) strengthened and legitimized the protection policies in the zone but also removed some restrictions on the future development of tourist projects. Thus the environmental protection and the exclusivity of this pristine and wild territory were guaran- teed for the enjoyment of the transnational elites and the benefit of their future investments. By this time Goldsmith had died, and his daughter Alix had assumed control of Cuixmala. She changed the strategy with respect to the villas on the estate, having several built for tourists and for rental, but she main- tained her father’s position opposing any larger-scale tourist plan in the area that might affect its exclusivity (Suverza, 2007).

High-End Tourism, the State, and Social Actors in Costa Alegre

With the new millennium, environmental policies that shielded the private paradises became an obstacle to large-scale tourist and real estate projects in Costa Alegre. There were several attempts between 2005 and 2010 to develop the area through the construction of tourist complexes—hotels, golf courses, marinas, and exclusive residential zones—along the coastal strip and in the mangrove swamps bordering on the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve. These projects created a confrontation between the interests of the developers (e.g., Gianfranco Brignone, Roberto Hernández, Ari Nieto, Wolfgang Hahn) and the environmentalist entrepreneurs (the Goldsmith family). Alliances among the new social actors were key to holding back the advance of tourism and real estate in those years. In particular, the environmentalist entrepreneur- ial alliance, represented by the Cuixmala Ecological Foundation and the 62 Latin American Perspectives

UNAM’s scientists and environmentalists, sounded the alarm about the nega- tive environmental impact of the new tourist projects on conservation of the biosphere reserve. Despite the tensions between the two transnational elites, their economic objectives were similar: both sought the privatization and neoliberalization of nature, differing only on methods. Within the framework of a post-Fordian tourism (Harvey, 1998), the projects of both groups sought to offer ecological values (such as protection of nature and organically grown foods) combined with pleasure (such as exclusivity and luxury) to high-end power consumers while excluding the local inhabitants of the areas of their projects. In spite of using a sustainable-tourism discourse, both groups infringed on environmental norms by, for example, constructing floodgates to control water levels in the wetlands and introducing exotic fauna (in the case of the Goldsmith family) or proposing the building of a marina in an estuary or golf courses in areas of water stress such as La Tambora and Zafiro. This flimsy ecological morality suggests that the conflicts between them came more from economic interests than from a genuine ecological conscience. In their competition to provide ecological and pleasure values, each of the groups possessed a power differential. While the Goldsmith family used the biosphere reserve to offer an unequaled ecological value (forests, mangroves, isolated beaches), the developer group projected the expansion of its offering to pleasure endeavors (golf courses, marinas) far beyond what the Goldsmith family could offer because of the limitations imposed on the use of the land in the reserve. Another important difference was that the power of the developer group was linked to public institutions in charge of deciding about the environmental viability of the tourist-realty projects on a national level such as the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources. Some of these businessmen were said to have financed Vicente Fox’s presidential campaign, and this might explain the sudden approval by the Secretary (days before his presidential term ended) of two projects of high environmental impact in the zone: La Tambora and Marina Careyes. Resistance on the environmentalist entrepre- neurial side—known locally as “the Cuixmala angel” in sarcastic reference to its role as the defender of nature—and the arguments of the UNAM scientists prevented, at least for a time, the advance of any large-scale high-end tourism. The Secretary had to revise its decision in 2008 by order of the new president, Felipe Calderón. Less than two years later, there was a more sophisticated attempt. Project Zafiro combined two previously unsuccessful proposals (La Tambora and San Carlos). Among its promoters were Roberto Hernández, former owner of Banco Nacional de México, and Wolfgang Hahn, a major partner in the Mexican company Impulsora Chamela. Stylishly environmentalist in an attempt to increase the possibility of approval and implementation of the project, they proposed the creation of environmental-protection polygons within the tourist and building complex. More than 200 hectares were proposed to expand the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, and there was to be an extensive organic farm. While the farm would be implemented in the medium and long term (within 20 years), the hotels and golf course would be built right away, since they were the main objective of the investment. Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 63

Because of the incorporation of an environmental dimension into this tourist/real-estate project, a favorable environmental impact report was approved in September 2010. Opposing arguments by the academy and even some official institutions such as the National Commission on Natural Protected Areas were not considered in the final decision. Thus the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources authorized the implementation in a zone of great ecological importance of a tourist-development project that included 146 residential properties, a 130-room hotel-spa and 60 luxury sea-view villas, an 18-hole golf course with lakes and 110 residential lots, a large area of beach concessions such as restaurants, bars, stores, pools, and playing fields and 120 condominium villas with ocean views, and a private airstrip to facilitate access for visitors. Despite the magnitude of the 900-hectare project, the environmental impacts were understated (Hernández, 2010). The project was approved in spite of its location in a high-water-stress zone (the ratio between demand and availability of water) surrounded by two natural protected areas, the Chamela islands and the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, near a sea-turtle sanctu- ary (Teopa and Cuixmala beaches), and sitting on a Ramsar protection site, the Chamela wetlands. What was most questionable about this decision was its total disregard for the local actors: the fishermen and inhabitants of Chamela. A few weeks after the approval they were violently evicted. In addition, four communal owners in Jocotlán who supported the fishermen were arrested while attending a meet- ing in Chamela. The indigenous people of Jocotlán had appeared unexpectedly on the scene of the conflict claiming ownership of the coastal lands on the basis of viceregal titles. Their support for the struggle of Chamela’s inhabitants came late and had no effect on the political level, much less on agrarian policy (del Castillo, 2011). The bounty in Costa Alegre had already been divided up between the developers and the environmental entrepreneurs; accumulation by dispossession had been consummated years ago and was beginning a new chapter, the neoliberalization of nature, through the promotion of tourist and real-estate projects with ecological and postmodern hues for the transnational elites. The local inhabitants, indigenous people and fishermen, played no part in this new story. Chamela was devastated by the destruction of houses and other buildings (schools and restaurants). The presence of security guards and the construction of a metal fence around Project Zafiro was needed to prevent invasion by the fishermen and merchants who had made use of this common area for their survival for 80 years. A regional leader of the fishermen’s union of Jalisco’s southern coast, Aureliano Sánchez, who opposed the privatization of the beaches and wetlands and in particular the construction of Marina Careyes, was found shot to death in an isolated spot near his locality, Emiliano Zapata, on July 13, 2011. No one was detained. Sánchez amd the Careyitos fishermen’s cooperative had been defending the access to the beach and nearby marshes at the mouth of the Cuixmala River, which had been de facto privatized by the Goldsmith family and was guarded day and night. The owner of Careyitos was Roberto Hernández, Brignone’s partner, who appears on the Forbes list of multimillionaires and also owns an ecological tourist complex and golf course near La Manzanilla beach known as El Tamarindo, a few kilometers from Careyes. He has a long 64 Latin American Perspectives history of being the beneficiary of privatizations of the country’s public companies and institutions (such as the purchase of the Banco Nacional de México). As an investor in the Yucatán peninsula, he faced criminal proceedings for damage to archaeological heritage, money laundering from narcotraffic in Quintana Roo, and the use of an area that belonged to him on the coastal strip as a corridor for drug traffic from South America to the United States (Giordano, 1999). But, as with all of the powerful in Mexico, the legal claims were unsuccessful, and he threatened and even intimidated and harassed the fishermen when they testified to the irregularities that took place on his property. Regarding the acts of plunder and violence in Chamela and Careyes, neither the environmentalist entrepreneurs nor the scientists of the UNAM raised their voices. This is the new face of capitalism on the Mexican coast (Harvey, 1998; 2003): the sensuous Cuixmala of James Goldsmith and the hedonist and neoliberal Careyes of Gianfranco Brignone and Roberto Hernández. Their contributions to the development of the Jalisco coast made them worthy of benefits and dec- orations by the Mexican government such as the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest distinction that our country grants to foreigners for services rendered to the nation or to humanity. The secretary of tourism, Rodolfo Elizondo, bestowing this decoration on Brignone in October 2006, highlighted his efforts in tourist promotion (Martínez, 2006):

Today I have the pleasure to bestow the Medal of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, Venerable Degree, on Mr. Gianfranco Brignone for his outstand- ing record in the realm of tourism in our country, since his name is forever tied to the Coast of Careyes, where the virgin beaches gave way to an enormous set of development and tourist products, generating a strong economic and social dynamic which today benefits many Mexican families.

For his part, Roberto Hernández also gained national recognition. The National Council for Culture and the Arts organized a tribute to him in February 2012 for his philanthropic efforts and support for the conservation of Mexico’s cultural heritage (Amador, 2012).

Final Reflections

The plunder and privatization of nature in Mexico have depended on the role played by the state, which has allowed, through deregulation, the ascent of the national and transnational private sector in real estate and tourism. This has made accumulation by dispossession possible through the privatization of social property and appropriation by foreign investors of strategic areas such as the wetlands, coasts, and beaches that are part of the national heritage. What is so serious here is that the state has ignored or infringed on the implementation of agrarian and environmental laws to benefit private interests and make tourist projects and investments viable and that agrarian and human rights have been violated without any action by the state to prevent or sanction this. This has weakened local actors, who have no legal, institutional path for resolv- ing conflicts. Ávila-García and Luna / HIGH-END TOURISM IN MEXICO 65

In view of this, the country is experiencing disorder, a dismantling of social institutions such as the ejido and the indigenous community, and new forms of violence and intimidation. The privatization of the Jalisco coast and the presence of national and transnational business elites as new owners of the place and defenders of the environment have made the local inhabitants, ejido and communal land owners, and fishermen to be strangers in their own land. The activities of capital in its neoliberal phase have disrupted the population’s way of life and threaten to destroy the ecosystems. The adoption of an environmentalist discourse has allowed the elites to appropriate the little that is left of the commons and natural resources in the region. Environmental policy has made the impossible possible through the legitimation provided by environmental impact studies and decrees of ecological protection, which limit the use of the land and shield the exclusivity and natural beauty of private investments. Thus in Costa Alegre the environmentalism of the rich has won the battle through the purchase of consciences and the use of power and violence to seize resources once common and socially owned. It employs an environmentalist discourse to conceal its intention to take over the best-preserved areas on the planet. In contrast, local actors such as fishermen and campesinos have been forced to seek other means of survival, since the areas they once used for their productive activities have been armor-plated and privatized. Many of them have been violently expelled or even assassinated. The environmentalism of the poor has been subjugated and damaged by the business elites.

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