The Greening of Mayakoba

THE GREENING OF MAYAKOBA

Salvador Linares, OHL?s General Manager, New Developments, had a guiding principle about Mayakoba from the start: ?I wanted to make a luxury project that would also be a luxury for the environment.? Like most luxuries, the preservation of Mayakoba?s fragile, precious ecology was costly. It also required considerable optimism and pluck, as OHL invested six years of research and work in saving Mayakoba?s natural resources before the Mexican government gave them final approval.

OHL acquired its first piece of land on the Riviera Maya in the late 1980s. At the time, OHL was purely a construction company, and the coastline south of Cancun was undeveloped. During the 90s, OHL began diversifying its operations just as the sleepy fishing village of Playa del Carmen and the area around it came alive as a tourist destination. OHL realized that their land on the Riviera Maya was the beginning of a wonderful opportunity, and began buying adjacent lots. They now own 240 hectares on the Caribbean side of the road, and 400 hectares on the opposite side.

At the same time, it was becoming clear that the headlong development of Cancun had caused serious problems. The mangrove tree is one of nature?s most efficient ?factories,? stabilizing sand and mud with its roots to maintain the coast, and harboring creatures who clean the water, thus protecting the coral reefs. Destroying Cancun?s mangrove forest to build high-rise hotels along the beach had killed the barrier reef in front of the resort and caused the shore to erode. Too late for Cancun but not for the Riviera Maya, Mexico?s government, in common with many in mangrove-growing areas around the world, put regulations in place to protect these essential plants.

The land OHL had acquired was a varied landscape of mangrove swamp, jungle, beach, dunes and reef barrier, dotted with cenotes (naturally occurring sinkholes) and alive with a tropical bestiary that included monkeys, turtles, pelicans and flamingoes. One of OHL?s first steps, early in the 1990s, was to send 65 biologists to live on the land and identify its characteristics, its inhabitants and ? most important ? its major vulnerabilities. They earmarked the areas away from the beach where it would be safest to build, and began the awesome task of preserving the mangrove swamp.

Mayakoba?s architects had crafted a complex plan in which the natural and man-made would intertwine, complementing and enhancing each other. Beach, golf course, mangrove swamp and jungle were to be linked by an aquamarine chain of lagoons and canals, man-made but using natural, subterranean water. Although the beach and the sea are obviously integral to the concept, only light building occupies the beach.

To protect the delicate eco-system, Mayakoba spent between five and six million US dollars in research alone, and worked for six years before the Mexican environmental authorities gave them the go-ahead in 1999. They had charged OHL with saving 50 per cent of all vegetation, including 80 per cent of the jungle and 65 per cent of the existing mangroves. In every instance, Mayakoba exceeded the regulations -- so much so that the authorities considered establishing an award, so they could give it to Mayakoba. One of the largest and most ambitious projects on the Riviera Maya has become an eco-benchmark against which future developments will be judged.

Saving the hard-working mangroves while lagoons were excavated, a golf course carved out, and hotels built was a key concern. Studying a Mayan technique for managing the forest called socoleo, the biologists learned about the natural balance of the forest, what plants were expendable what were not and how to cut each tree differently. They planted 25,000 mangroves, recovering seeds and using a special planting technique using micro-channels taught to them by the reigning Mexican expert. Ninety-eight per cent survived. In all, some 96,000 plants from 40 families and 108 species were saved. Their nursery now has about 130,000 indigenous plants, from smoky purple-and-green agaves to giant palm trees, which will be used to beautify Mayakoba?s unique landscape.

Mayakoba is a blessed land for fauna as well as flora, and the mangrove forest in particular is known for its bio-diversity. Many species left during Mayakoba?s years of intense upheaval, but now deer, boar and many others are returning. ?Animals are intelligent,? Hector Alafita, the young biologist who is the project manager for Mayakoba?s Environmental Advisory, says. ?If they know they won?t be hunted, they will return to a place that treated them well.?

Let the last word go to Alafita. He began his career as an activist, and then worked for the state of Veracruz on environmental issues. Now, almost to his own surprise, he works for a large corporation, creating a resort. ?My friends ask me how I can bear the fact that I?ve ?sold out,?? he says with a wry smile. ?I tell them I?m able to accomplish so much more for the environment on this project than I ever did in the past.?

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