Friday, June 3, 2016

Marieta Island has been closed

On May 9 the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) announced the closure to the public of the Marieta Islands, due to environmental damage caused by excessive visitors. Reliance said in a statement that "Love Beach", located in the Marieta Islands National Park in Nayarit, presents a serious degradation in their marine ecosystems, threatening the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable development. During the Easter holidays, exemplified, the island received an average of more than a thousand visitors a day with peaks up to 3000, when the Park Management Program states that its maximum capacity is only 625 tourists. He also explained that ecosystem damage occurred by anchoring boats, diving and the mass concentration of visitors in one place. The pollution caused by waste fuels and oils, garbage and waste, coupled with the removal of fragments of coral, crustaceans and molluscs by visitors and illegal fishermen, has been caused several damage to the corals. In order to revert the damage, the dependency and academic institutions carry out activities of ecological restoration and maintenance that help the natural recovery of the ecosystem, represented by more than a decennia of species of coral and more than a hundred of fish species.