My Homeland
PENINSULAR
By: Eduardo Palacios Castro. Founder and Board Member of Terra Peninsular
T
he more I travel, the more I love the Baja
California peninsula. The most beautiful part
of this land is that when you visit a place
that is isolated from the Transpeninsular
Highway, it seems that you are the first
person ever in that spot. That same feeling of discovering and rediscovering the little-known landscapes
of the peninsula fascinates both natives and visitors.
My land feels like a large island; which it is for
political, cultural and economic purposes, but that
is a different topic. Isolation caused by water scarcity and warm weather has resulted in large natural spaces of uninhabited mountains, valleys and
coasts, unlike the continental massif.
“May God save this place from irregular settlements” a lady said while contemplating the beautiful landscape that extends from the Sierra de San
Francisco to the San Ignacio Lagoon. Our fascination for the peninsula drives some of us to want to
show it to the world, or treasure it, or both.
For me, the need of preserving nature in this land
emerged in 1988 due to a project of touristic development at the Punta Banda coastal lagoon, close
16
AUGUST 2016
to Ensenada. The project intended to dredge the
lagoon to build a marina and flatten the sand bar
dunes in order to build beachfront houses.
Several researchers from the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada
(CICESE) and the Autonomous University of Baja
California (UABC) of Ensenada gathered in multiple
occasions to discuss the pros and cons of the project. Even if there were many researchers who supported the project, most of them agreed that the
negative consequences put the ecological integrity
and environmental services of the Punta Banda
coastal lagoon at stake.
That same year, the Mexican Environmental
Legislation created the General Law on Ecological
Balance and Environmental Protection (LGEEPA,
in Spanish), which was of high relevance in conservation activities in Mexico since it introduced
the concept of Environmental Land Management,
environmental impact assessment, and protection
of natural areas.
In this context, Pro Esteros was founded. A binational citizen organization dedicated to the preser-