Editorial
Publishing a magazine is an enormous responsibility. More than once people have come to me to urge that I write about some injustice or environmental depredation that affects the whole community, and I have had to step back and think, “Do I really want to get involved?” Often the answer is, “No, not now.” It took the citizen’s closure, led by the Hotel Owners’ Association, of the Whale construction on Zicatela to get me interested in what was going on in the Federal Zone. And once I was in, there was no getting out again.
Surfing is what makes Puerto stand out from other Mexican seaside resorts. It is the key to tourism in our city and how Puerto is promoted in Mexico and abroad. In September hotels on Zicatela and in Colonia Santa María and the Punta that cater to surfers experienced 100% occupancy, mostly by Australians. They come to Mexico only to surf Zicatela. If anything were to happen to our famous waves, international tourism would die, and once the super highway is built Puerto would just become a party town for kids from Oaxaca and Puebla.
Logically, one would think that everyone in Puerto: foreigners and Mexicans alike, would all have an interest in protecting the beaches. Shockingly, this is not the case. One hears rumors of hotels that surreptitiously disgorge their raw sewage into the ocean in the dead of the night, and, more openly, one observes a few holders of federal concessions who build permanent constructions of reinforced cement in plain violation of federal laws protecting the beach.
Barbara Joan Schaffer
Editor and Publisher
vivapuerto1@gmail.com
954 582 2993
954 100 3507 cel
