Mexico’s federal environmental agency, Semarnat (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales), has given conditioned approval to a new tourist-residential development on the coast northwest of La Paz — even though its own internal review concluded the project will cause lasting damage that current mitigation plans cannot fully offset. The project, called Camarón Beach and promoted by Superior Enterprises S. de R.L. de C.V., is set to rise on 30.96 hectares (about 309,660 square meters) roughly 47 kilometers northwest of the city, according to BCS Noticias.
The plans call for 27 residential lots, staff housing, roads, recreational areas and designated conservation zones, all carved out of a coastal ecosystem that, until now, has mostly been left alone. Before approval, the project went through a public consultation process that drew 14 written objections from residents concerned about its impact on the area. Semarnat’s conclusion was not that those concerns were unfounded — it was that the project could proceed anyway, with conditions attached.
That nuance matters. Semarnat’s own Dirección General de Restauración Ambiental, the agency’s General Directorate of Environmental Restoration, reviewed the file and did not mince words. The project, it found, “presents relevant adverse environmental impacts on biodiversity, soil, water and air quality,” and the mitigation measures proposed by the developer “are insufficient to preserve the ecological integrity of the site.” In plain terms: the agency charged with protecting the land said the damage is real, and the fixes on offer don’t cover it — then the project got a green light regardless, with extra compensation requirements bolted on.
Those requirements are specific. Roughly 10.54 hectares of vegetation will have to come down to make way for construction, in an area that’s home to three reptile species listed as threatened under Mexico’s endangered species standard, NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010: the zebra-tailed lizard, the black-tailed brush lizard and the orange-throated whiptail. Before any clearing begins, the developer must run rescue, relocation and monitoring programs for those species — and keep more than 81,000 square meters free of construction for conservation, plus another 60,000 square meters set aside to preserve ecological connectivity across the site.
Water is its own separate headache. The project plans to run a reverse-osmosis desalination plant to meet an estimated daily demand of 22.5 cubic meters, pulling roughly 20,250 cubic meters a year. But Semarnat’s authorization is explicit that it does not double as a water permit — the developer still needs separate sign-off from Conagua, the national water commission, both to extract water and to dispose of the leftover brine. That’s a gap that has derailed or stalled other Baja Sur projects before, and it’s one worth watching here too.
The authorization itself runs for up to 65 years — 15 for construction, 50 for operation — but it comes loaded with strings: environmental monitoring programs, reforestation of 2.3 hectares with at least 471 native plants, a financial guarantee to cover potential environmental damage, and additional restoration work down the line. Semarnat’s resolution spells out what happens if any of that slips: fines, halted construction, or outright revocation of the permit.
Camarón Beach is not an isolated case. It lands in a stretch of Baja Sur approvals where federal regulators have repeatedly acknowledged environmental costs up front rather than discovering them later — a pattern visible in cases like the El Saltito mega-resort near La Paz, which was ultimately ruled not viable, and the San Cristóbal Beach project, which cleared its own early hurdles under similar conditions. The question for Camarón Beach now isn’t whether Semarnat saw the risks — it clearly did, in writing. It’s whether the compensation measures hold up once bulldozers show up, and whether Conagua’s water review turns out to be a formality or a genuine speed bump.
