Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — Local officials have refused to grant a hotel permission to move ahead with a restoration project. The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) have denied permits to the Secrets Moxché Hotel after finding out they restored a beach area without approval.
According to submitted documents, the hotel was requesting approval for a restoration project to address beach erosion. However, federal officials learned that the hotel had already gone ahead and carried out the restoration without their approval.
The hotel is situated seaside in north Playa del Carmen within the Grand Coral complex between Punta Esmeralda and Punta Bete. The project, which began in 2020, also included the addition of three 75-meter-long breakwaters as well as the addition of extracted sand.
However, the three breakwaters had already been put into place before the federal government issued authorization.
The file states that the project also intended to extract and transport approximately 28,660 cubic meters of sand from a marine bank called Mox for later use in the restoration of a stretch of beach about 300 meters long.
Semarnat itself had registered these characteristics in the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by the project proponent back in 2020, however, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) indicated that the project did not demonstrate the viability of the activity or analyze, in sufficient detail, how the proposed actions would be carried out.
They also warned of potential violations of the administrative rules of the Management Program for the Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve.
Last month, the General Directorate of Environmental Impact and Risk (DGIRA) denied the hotel project authorization and notified the Office of Environmental Protection and Territorial Management of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) in Quintana Roo to review the site’s conditions for completed work without permits.
Their decision was published in the September 24, 2026 edition of the Gaceta Ecológica.
Federal officials will review the work already carried out by the hotel to verify possible breaches of environmental legislation and determine fines and/or a possible closure, as well as the corresponding actions to regularize or correct the conditions.
