Isla Mujeres, Q.R. — Island residents joined in a peaceful demonstration Friday in an attempt to avoid the definitive closure of the sea turtle facility, Tortugranja. The facility was closed when the property on which it was located was handed over to new owners.
The property was handed over to the federal agency National Fisheries Institute at the end of September. Upon the change of title, the Tortugranja facilities were emptied after the last administration did not renew an agreement with the owners.
On Firiay, island residents demonstrated outside the old facilities with new municipal mayor, Atenea Gómez Ricalde, joining them.
“As an islander, as a mother and as mayor, I am interested in what might happen here in Tortugranja and I came to talk with the federal agency in order to understand what is happening because as the entire town knows, the administration who just left did not even leave us a log, records or a real situation of what they did not legally do and because of that, the Tortugranja has gone to waste,” she said.
She added that if necessary, she will go to Mexico City with the heads of the necessary federal agencies to present the situation in which Isla Mujeres is in today.
“There is a lot of corruption in Tortugranja. What we are discovering in the delivery-reception process is several hundred million pesos for which, during these past five years, nobody knows anything. There were no logs. They did not leave management plans, they did not have a veterinary doctor for marine animals to take care of the turtles,” she revealed.
