Baja California: Lighthawk Mission #1 - Phoenix to La Paz

January 5, 2010

What impresses me most from the air is how vast and wild Baja California still is. Arriving in Loreto following our flight across the Gulf of California from Phoenix, my Lighhawk pilot, Chuck Heywood, takes off the doors of our Cessna 206. Lighthawk is an active group of volunteer pilots who fly missions for conservation, and we are here in Baja to fly and photograph the coast from Loreto to La Paz. Tomorrow we will continue on from La Paz to Cabo San Lucas. With the plane gassed up and ready to go, he fits me in the harness with my camera mounted on a gyro stabilizer for extra stability. It's wheels up two hours before sundown. Perfect timing.

Our first target is the development at Loreto Bay. Touted as "green" and "sustainable," the high-density construction looks like a slice of Disneyland from the air. At first glance the colorful buildings and golf course look inviting. But the impact of development of this scale is huge: construction in a wetland ecosystem, lack of adequate infrastructure (limited freshwater resources and inadequate sewage treatment facilities), and the influx of workers from the poorest parts of mainland Mexico. Offshore is Loreto Bay National Park, home to a third of the whale species on earth. The project is
now bankrupt. The legacy of boom and bust continues.

Heading south along the coast from Loreto our next target is Ensenada
Blanca, a remote bay that was once the location of Danzante Eco-Resort. This bay is the poster child of the change that is happening along the Baja peninsula. Danzante was a small,
environmentally friendly resort with a limited footprint on the land.
It employed local people, with the beach was accessible to all, including the fisherman from the villages of Ligui and Ensenada Blanca who launched their pangas here for generations to fish the rich waters offshore. Threatened by lawsuits and strong-arm tactics from the developers (VillaGroupResorts), local land owners finally sold out. Construction started soon thereafter. Another pristine Baja bay never to be the same.

Continuing south the jagged peaks of the Sierra de la Giganta begin to
cast a shadow along the coast. We're on the lookout for another planned development, this one slated for a saltwater lagoon near the fishing community of Agua Verde. We see the lagoon ahead. With the site plan for the development website in hand (PuertodeSanCosme),
it doesn't take any imagination to envision what is planned--a
breakwater, marina, and waterfront homes--along what is now a remote
section of the coast. Construction has not yet begun, so maybe there's
hope.

As the sun nears the horizon, La Paz comes into view. Our flightpath
for landing takes us directly over the El Mogote peninsula where
another tragic development is occurring, Paradise by the Sea (ParadiseoftheSea). Once public land, El Mogote is another example of a project that should have never received permits from the Mexican government. The peninsula is a barrier beach, dune, and wetland ecosystem that protects the inner La Paz harbor for storm surges. Close to shore is a known whale shark
area. What should have been preserved for future generations to enjoy is now being carved up for shot-term profit. While the condos are reportedly sinking into the sand, their foundations cracking, lawsuits are pending to stop the continued destruction.

On the ground in La Paz exhausted. Baja California from the air is
breathtaking. If the Baja peninsula was part of the US, much of it
would look like San Diego today. South of the border everything
changes. A lack of freshwater and infrastructure has protected Baja
from the fate of other desirable coastlines, like southern California
and Florida, for example. Although it's still the good old days in some parts of Baja, things are changing fast. Big-money developers have Baja in the cross-hairs. "Baja is for the taking," a corporate pilot tells me, before firing up his Beechcraft turboprop at the La
Paz Airport.

Tomorrow we fly from La Paz to the Cape region, where we will witness more of the uncontrolled growth that puts Baja's coast and marine protected areas at risk.