Three boats were seized at Alacranes Reef National Park after their passengers went ashore on Isla Pájaros, a tiny island that is off-limits to visitors because sea turtles and seabirds nest there. Profepa, Mexico’s federal environmental protection agency, announced the seizures Friday. The boats — the Gypsea, the Seamaster, and El Abuelo — were stopped…
The death of a wakeboarding instructor at the La Isla artificial lake is the latest wake-up call that Yucatán is failing to manage one of its most important resources—water. Rapid development is straining resources and harming public health and the local economy. The Peninsula sits on a porous karst aquifer, a geological formation composed of…
Mexico’s Navy and state-owned oil company Pemex put absorbent barriers in the water Tuesday to contain a hydrocarbon leak near the Ciénega de Progreso, the coastal wetland just south of Yucatán’s main port. The Navy said the leak appeared to come from deteriorating pipelines in the area. Specialists from its marine environmental protection unit at…
For decades, Tulum was a quiet settlement on the coast of the Mexican Caribbean.
In the early morning hours, Progreso municipal police found 127 sea turtle hatchlings on the beach in Chelem. Because of their condition, officers gathered the tiny turtles and took them to a designated spot on the beach for a safe release. The rescue is one of many this season. As of Sept. 9, Progreso police…
Environmental organizations in the Yucatán Peninsula have raised serious concerns regarding the safety of urban wildlife during official state celebrations. The conservation group Proyecto Santa María publicly criticized local authorities for what they described as a profound lack of empathy and commitment toward protecting vulnerable animal populations. The complaint centers on the heavy use of…
Look up this week, and the sky over Yucatán may look a little different. Civil protection officials say a cloud of Saharan dust is settling over the Peninsula from today through Tuesday, with a light to moderate concentration expected. The main effects: a hazy, slightly duller sky during the day and unusually deep red and…
Federal environmental inspectors have sealed off a stretch of dunes in Chabihau, a small fishing port on Yucatán’s north coast, after social media posts showed heavy machinery digging up sand along the shoreline. Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, known as Semarnat, sent inspectors to the site along with police from the municipality of…
Authorities at the Cuxtal Ecological Reserve are warning would-be buyers about a wave of online ads offering so-called “investment lots” inside and around the protected area south of Mérida, saying the land behind many of these offers cannot legally be sold as residential property. Sandra García Peregrina, director of the reserve, said her office remains…
The Celestún Biosphere Reserve is a popular destination to get a close-up view of its most famous residents: pink flamingos. However, this part of the western coast of the Yucatán Peninsula offers much more than graceful pink species. A Diverse Ecosystem The reserve covers more than 200 hectares. It extends across the states of Yucatán…
Yucatán business leaders say a hostile investment climate is scaring off capital, and they’re pointing to the stalled “Las Dunas” beach project as their prime example. Coparmex Mérida, the local chapter of Mexico’s national employers’ confederation, unveiled its first Data Coparmex 2026 survey this week. The results were bleak: eight in 10 member businesses have…
Three tropical waves are expected to cross Yucatán during the first week of September, building toward the weekend and raising the risk of street flooding in low-lying areas, according to meteorologist Juan Antonio Palma Solís of Meteored México. The timing lines up with the Atlantic’s busiest stretch of the year. The season’s climatological peak falls…
For most of its history, the Yucatán Peninsula simply wasn’t coyote country. The animal belonged to the arid brushlands of northern Mexico and the American West, thousands of kilometers (roughly 620-plus miles) from the humid limestone flats around Mérida. So when Yucatán’s Tourism Promotion Secretariat, Sefotur, released photos this week of a coyote padding through…
A federal judge has granted a new suspension against the contested Las Dunas real estate development in Chuburná Puerto, this time targeting the municipal permits that allowed construction to move forward. Residents of Chuburná Puerto, the collective Salvemos las Dunas and the organization Kanan Derechos Humanos won the provisional order after filing an amparo lawsuit…
Progreso’s city council has replaced its construction rulebook for the first time in 33 years, responding to a wave of real estate development along the port’s stretch of coastline — though it’s not yet clear whether the new rules include height limits or are meant to slow the pace of construction. The Ayuntamiento approved three…
Mérida has landed on a global list it would rather avoid: the 50 cities most vulnerable to extreme heat, according to new international research. The city ranked 47th out of 205 cities studied worldwide in a paper published in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society, led by researchers including a team from the University of…
A week into 2026 octopus season, catches are running far behind what cooperatives are used to. What once took a single day to land — around 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of octopus — is now taking nearly five days to reach. Nearly all boats in the region went out this past Monday, hoping production would…
Yucatán’s farmers are tearing up the old planting calendar. Decades of predictable seasons have given way to erratic rain and shifting temperatures, forcing growers across the state to rethink when — and how — they plant, according to the state’s Secretaría de Desarrollo Rural (Seder). The four seasons that once guided the agricultural cycle are…
Before Las Dunas could be shut down, it first had to be approved — and that approval came only after Mexico’s environment ministry had already rejected it once. Semarnat, the federal environment secretariat, turned down the Las Dunas tourist complex in 2023, when Progreso’s urban development plan classified the Chuburná Puerto site as highly vulnerable….
Facing its worst sargassum season on record, Mexico’s federal government unveiled a new strategy July 30 to intercept the seaweed before it reaches Quintana Roo’s beaches, backed by MX$2.64 billion — roughly US$150 million — in new spending. President Claudia Sheinbaum announced the plan during her morning press conference at Palacio Nacional, flanked by Navy…
Construction at the contested “Las Dunas” real estate project in Chuburná Puerto came to a halt Thursday after Mexico’s environmental enforcement agency posted closure seals at the site, according to activists and local media who visited the property. Members of the collective Salvemos Las Dunas said a banner reading “Clausurado,” bearing the logos of the…
Mérida will host the fifth annual Festival Mexicano de las Serpientes on Aug. 1 and 2, a two-day event built around more than 20 free activities focused on environmental education and wildlife conservation. The festival is organized by the nonprofit Tlacuatzin A.C. in coordination with the Mérida city government, along with academic institutions, government agencies…
Heavy machinery has been clearing dune vegetation on a stretch of coastline here, and the work has triggered one of the largest environmental petitions the Yucatán coast has seen in years. More than 43,000 people have signed an online petition demanding a halt to “Las Dunas,” a real estate project planned near El Playón de…
A long-planned sanctuary for endangered tapirs in the municipality of Kinchil could finally open by the end of this year, once a small group of animals arriving from Guatemala clears Mexico’s health inspections. The Santuario del Tapir has been years in the making. It’s run by a Unidad de Manejo para la Conservación de Vida…
That’s all for now
That’s all for now