The Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) announced that, in a resolution issued on September 23, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) annulled the environmental impact authorization granted in 2014 to the mining project “Los Cardones” in La Paz, Baja California Sur, promoted by the company Desarrollos Zapal S.A. de C.V.
“This decision represents an achievement of citizen organization and a significant advance in the defense of the Sierra La Laguna Biosphere Reserve, a protected natural area crucial for the recharge of the aquifers that supply the communities of La Paz and Los Cabos in Baja California Sur. Likewise, it constitutes a very important step in the protection of the ecosystems of the region, which is the result of the active participation and collaboration of the citizens, who organized to defend the Reserve,” said organizations such as Cemda, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Niparajá Natural History Society, Friday’s for Future, Justicieros del Océano, among others.
In a statement, they pointed out that in the last year, the campaign to demand the protection of Sierra La Laguna has brought together more than 25 thousand people, and although on several occasions both former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the current governor, Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío, publicly announced the cancellation of the project, the authorization was still in force until these days. Therefore, this resolution marks an important step towards this goal.
“Even though Semarnat annulled the authorization, this does not mean that the project is definitively canceled, since the authority must issue a new resolution in the next four months,” they warned.
“Los Cardones,” a threat to water in BCS.
The “Los Cardones” project seeks to exploit an open-pit mine on an area of 439.51 hectares in the municipality of La Paz, Baja California Sur. Much of this area is located within the Protected Natural Area (ANP) Sierra La Laguna Biosphere Reserve. This site is crucial for the recharge of aquifers that supply approximately 67% of the state’s population and is habitat for various endemic species.
In 2019, an agreement was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation recognizing that almost 60% of the land within the Sierra La Laguna Biosphere Reserve is not owned by the mining company.
According to the resolution that annuls the Environmental Impact Authorization for “Los Cardones”, the environmental authority must issue a new resolution within a period of no more than four months.
“We welcome Semarnat’s decision and call on it to confirm its decision in the following stages of this process and definitively cancel the project, as South Californians have been requesting for years in order to ensure the protection of Sierra La Laguna,” the organizations concluded.
Source: milenio