Could El Cuyo’s New Fishing Port do More Harm than Good?
A plan is moving forward to clean out and deepen the fishing port at El Cuyo, a coastal village in the municipality of Tizimin, Yucatán.
Coverage of the project has been positive, and focused on the creation of 48 temporary jobs and the improvement of El Cuyo’s infrastructure.
But Yucatán’s port authority has, in recent years, developed a spotty track record of overly optimistic environmental assessments. The most prominent example of this is the erosion of Progreso’s coastline, largely attributed to the expansion of its deepwater pier, already the longest in the world.
Balancing Progress and Protection
The project at El Cuyo involves dredging in two main areas. The first is the navigation channel, the underwater path boats follow to enter the port. This channel is currently 30 meters (98 feet) wide and 466 meters (roughly 1,529 feet) long. The second is the dock basin, the open-water area where boats turn around and park to unload their catch more easily.
Dredging is the process of removing mud, sand, and other materials from the bottom of a body of water. The most immediate potential concern is the creation of muddy plumes. When the dredge sucks up the sediment, it stirs up fine particles that hang in the water.
These plumes can travel some distance, reducing the sunlight reaching underwater plants and smothering small animals on the seabed, such as worms, crabs, and shellfish. Over time, the seabed disposal site will also be covered with a thick layer of this material, permanently altering the ocean floor ecosystem.
Unlike many coastal communities, El Cuyo still conserves nearly all of its coastal dunes and vegetation, which are crucial to protect it from storms and hurricanes.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
The growing tourism sector in El Cuyo Caters to a majority of travellers from the Peninsula, but folks from other regions of the country and foreigners are by no means a rare occurrence.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
Fishing looms large as a part of El Cuyo’s identity, which is all the more reason to make sure it continues to be done in an environmentally conscious manner.Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht / Yucatán Magazine
Environmental Projections
The project’s own environmental study describes the area as having low marine diversity and only 10 common fish species. Still, this assessment has not been independently verified and does not account for the fact that these fishing grounds are the very reason the community was founded.
The main argument for this project is to create infrastructure to support the reported 704 registered fishermen in the community. However, given that the reported population of El Cuyo is 1750, the number seems suspect.
At El Cuyo, local fishermen go out in relatively small boats to catch species like grouper, snapper, robalo, and croaker. A deeper channel would let them go out to sea and return faster, and it would make unloading their daily catch much easier. This efficiency matters because fish need to stay fresh.
However, if the plan goes through, larger commercial fisheries would also be able to operate and compete directly with the locals of El Cuyo.
The Tourism Angle
Over the past decade, El Cuyo has become an increasingly popular tourist destination for holiday makers from the Yucatán Peninsula and further afield.
Though still small compared to famous resort towns on the Peninsula, El Cuyo is already home to many hotels, restaurants, and holiday homes.
A 2022 study by Astrid Wojtarowski Leal found that locals of El Cuyo favor development in the fishing and tourism industries, as long as it is carried out with low environmental impact.
The main reason El Cuyo has developed its growing tourism industry is the beauty of its beaches and tranquility, with even cell phone signals being extremely weak. While it’s understandable that fishermen would want to make their jobs easier, the potential environmental fallout could do more harm than good.
Senior Editor Carlos Rosado van der Gracht, PhD, is a journalist, photographer, and expedition leader. Born in Mérida, Carlos holds degrees from universities in Mexico, Canada, and Norway. Most recently, he earned a doctorate in Heritage Studies in 2026.
