Social alienation and environmental decline in a coral reef: Challenges to coastal management in the Mexican Caribbean

Tourism is the primary economic activity on the Riviera Maya in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The area's main attractions are the fringing coral reefs along the coast and the myriad white sand beaches produced by them. Rapid growth of tourism and supporting industries generates jobs and a steady flow of immigrants, increasing demand for housing and services. It also increases pressure on coastal and marine resources through impacts such as pollution, overfishing, coastal zone modification, etc. In this context, Akumal a small tourism-support town associated to the coastal tourism center Akumal Beach, was selected to assess its level of dependence and appropriation of marine resources. A two-pronged approach included a characterization of the town's population socio-economic indicators, as well as their use and perception of easily identifiable marine resources (coral reef, fish and water quality), applying surveys with close-ended questions. And the second approach was the interview of key local business owners and tours operators to establish their vulnerability to coral reef degradation, and their disposition towards conservation efforts. The relationships between community involvement and resource appropriation, as well as, socioeconomic indicators and local perceptions about the past, present and future condition of marine resources were explored using redundancy analysis (RDA), and additionally important variables identified were tested for significance with a Chi-squared test. Surveys highlighted two socio-economic factors: its high employment rate (90%) with 80% working directly in tourism (but earning average wages 25% lower than the regional average), and the heavy out-of-state immigration. Surveys also brought up two phenomena among newcomers: deterritorialization (or social alienation), consisting in lack of involvement by the local community in decision-making processes, scarce participation in natural resources use, and shifting-baselines associated to ignorance of current resource condition. Interviews with local stakeholders found that they felt only partially vulnerable in a hypothetical situation of total reef loss, and were open to support conservation efforts as long as transparency and full cooperation from all stakeholders was ensured. The measures recommended to coastal managers, broadly applicable to the Mexican Caribbean, focus on development of local strategies addressing the root causes of social mistrust and misperceptions, leading to environmental degradation.