Acapulco Diamante’s Urban Expansion Has Destroyed Part of Its Coastal Marine Ecosystem
UAG researcher Benjamín Castillo Elías explains that connectivity between the Tres Palos and Puerto Marqués lagoons has been lost, and that areas that were once wetlands are now occupied by shopping centers, neighborhoods, and streets. One example is the disappearance of the guayacán, a protected tree species. The landscape of a coastal marine ecosystem was transformed, says the specialist in this area. This is where the city’s largest reserve of vacant land is located, but its use requires strict planning and territorial management criteria, according to the draft 2026 Municipal Urban Development Plan.
Fourth and Final Part
The draft 2026 Municipal Urban Development Plan indicates that the Diamante area faces “significant challenges in terms of infrastructure provision, connectivity, land consumption, and exposure to risks, which is why its development requires strict planning and territorial management criteria.”
In the Cayaco–Llano Largo and Diamante sectors, fewer than 55 percent of homes are occupied, “clearly reflecting their tourism, second-home residential, and temporary lodging services orientation,” the document states.
The Acapulco mangrove specialist and academic at the Autonomous University of Guerrero (UAG), Benjamín Castillo Elías, said that international and national laws have protected mangroves since the 1980s and penalize their destruction without authorization, but these laws have not been applied to those carrying out megaprojects in the Diamante area that “generate ecocides.”
In 15 Years, Almost 500 More Hectares of Urban Area
The draft 2026 Municipal Urban Development Plan, which is in the process of being approved by the City Council, states that from 2010 to 2025, the urban footprint of the Diamante sector increased by 472.4 hectares, “consolidating a model of expansion linked to large-scale tourism and residential activity.”
It emphasizes that various agrarian communities along Acapulco’s southeastern coastal strip “have experienced an accelerated transformation in land use, driven by hotel, residential, commercial, and tourism-service developments,” including Plan de los Amates, Villa Alfredo V. Bonfil, El Podrido, and San Pedro Las Playas.
The document specifies the different types of vegetation cover affected in Diamante, highlighting 2.89 hectares of flood-prone areas. “The occupation of these areas introduces significant risks associated with flooding and the loss of resilience in the face of extreme hydrometeorological events.”
In absolute terms, the Anfiteatro sector has the city’s largest population, with 244,295 inhabitants, followed by the Renacimiento sector with 229,012, Cayaco–Llano Largo with 93,586, Pie de la Cuesta with 52,330, and Diamante with 35,473 inhabitants.
Regarding the number of homes, the Anfiteatro sector also has the largest number, with 101,249 homes, followed by Renacimiento with 78,380 homes, Cayaco–Llano Largo with 58,793 homes, and Diamante with 28,010 homes.
The Municipal Plan’s analysis indicates that the Anfiteatro and Renacimiento sectors have the largest populations born outside the state. “However, the Diamante sector records the greatest relative accumulated migratory attraction, with more than 10.34 percent of its population coming from other states, reflecting its recent character as a space of selective attraction associated with tourism, residential, and service developments.”
Likewise, the Diamante sector has an average level of schooling of 10.80 years, meaning a population with a higher level of formal education but low permanent occupancy “given the high proportion of temporary housing oriented toward the tourism market.”
In addition, this sector contains 592.77 hectares of vacant land, the largest reserve of land in the city. “However, its use poses significant challenges in terms of infrastructure provision, connectivity, land consumption, and exposure to risks, which is why its development requires strict planning and territorial management criteria.”
The Coastal Marine System That Was Destroyed
Imagine a mental map: a huge green plain of mangroves and lowland forest surrounding the Negra de Puerto Marqués and Tres Palos lagoons, both interconnected with the La Sabana River through a meandering channel. Watercourses descend from the adjacent El Veladero mountain range, while on one side the waves of the Pacific Ocean break against dunes, and small scattered communities of ranchers and plant nursery workers coexist with nature.
This is the coastal marine system upon which Acapulco Diamante was built, explained Castillo Elías, a researcher at the Center for Research and Graduate Studies in Socio-Territorial Studies (CIPES), Acapulco campus, who has been researching the wetlands of the Tres Palos lagoon for a decade with the goal of restoring them.
This ecosystem “has connectivity between the lowland forest and the mangrove area, which is the intermediate zone between the lowland forest and the coastal dune area located in front of the mangroves, and therefore the Pacific Ocean.”
Together with his colleagues Herlinda Gervacio Jiménez and Salvador Villerías Salinas, Castillo Elías is the author of the book Hurricane Otis in Acapulco. Socioeconomic and Environmental Vulnerability to the Impacts of the Hydrometeorological Phenomenon, in which he reveals the loss of connectivity between the Negra de Puerto Marqués Lagoon and the Tres Palos Lagoon through the meandering channel, as well as with the La Sabana River, due to urban growth.
From 1970 to 2020, the Tres Palos Lagoon lost 251 hectares of mangrove, declining from 835 hectares to 585. The decrease is concentrated in the ejidos of Llano Largo and Puerto Marqués. The meandering channel originates from the lagoon, passes by the Puerto Marqués roundabout, and disappears into the housing developments, “but this lagoon body continues to receive water.”
This connectivity, gradually destroyed by the construction of streets, buildings, and homes, ensures that “there is a flow between biodiversity, and you are essentially cutting off the flora and fauna that are shared by both lagoon systems,” the specialist elaborated.
At the entrance to the Colosio Housing Complex on Bulevar de las Naciones, there are various establishments, one of the largest being Walmart. There, “it was a microclimate because there was still natural soil and it was actually a wetland; that area retained water, there was vegetation native to that region, and there was even one species characteristic of these sites, the guayacán,” the academic said.
The specimens of this protected species “disappeared when Walmart and Costco were brought in. Some remnants remain, but practically the landscape throughout that area, which was originally a coastal marine ecosystem, has been transformed.”
According to the Ramsar Convention, held in 1971 to protect wetlands and mangroves, and which entered into force in Mexico in 1986, mangroves are considered “a coastal wetland of an estuarine category in which, practically throughout the year, there is a certain amount of water depending on rainfall. There may be an increase in the low tide, but there will always be water,” Castillo Elías explained.
The country has multiple regulations protecting mangroves: the General Law of Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection; the General Wildlife Law; Standards 059 and 022; the Federal Environmental Liability Law, which establishes restoration measures; and the Federal Criminal Code, which establishes prison sentences for environmental crimes. “Both internationally and nationally, there is legislation, there are regulations; the problem here is enforcement,” he emphasized.
“And I have not seen that enforcement take place, especially when it comes to those carrying out environmental-impact megaprojects when they generate ecocides.”
The expert maintained that “responsibility does not lie entirely with the government; it also lies with environmental consultants and specialists in the field. They are the ones who conduct soil studies and characterize the flora and fauna, and if they find something they know is wrong, ‘well, I have to tell the authorities; I found this species,’ rather than omitting it.”
In the Tres Palos Lagoon there are basin and riparian mangroves, and “restoration is very complex. It is not simply a matter of saying, ‘I am going to restore it, I am going to obtain resources.’ The problem here is the lack of technical training, knowing what is going to be done and what will be implemented,” he stated.
Source: suracapulco
