Let’s rescue the Valley: the Baja California wine region “is being eaten by concrete”

For more than a decade, the Guadalupe Valleylocated in Ensenada, Lower California, It has been the epicenter of human exploitation due to the appropriation of land for the construction of nightclubs, crowded spaces for concerts and real estate subdivisions, causing irreparable damage to agricultural land.

However, another of the events that has caused great indignation among tenants in the area located in the interior of the Baja California peninsula, ranging from vintners, winemakers, chefs and residents, it is the direct impact on one of the most important wine-growing areas in Mexico, which according to estimates by various specialists could disappear in 2037.

For this reason and after the depredation that has plagued the area, residents of Valle de Guadalupe, tired of the opacity of state and federal authorities, decided to form the movement Let’s rescue the Valley which seeks to “face the onslaught of urbanization, the illegal sale of land and the absence of the rule of law” that has affected the town for more than five years.

The movement has been joined by academics, businessmen and tenants from the area, including the president of the State Council of Vine Producers of BC, Ferdinand Perez Castro; the academic Ileana Espejel; the president of Provino, Mauricio Cantu; the viticulturist Natalia Badan; claudia torrent of For a Valley of Truth; the young architect Axel of the Tower And several more.

The latter is one of the pioneers of the movement that began to unite the population of El Valle de Guadalupe to make way for Let’s rescue the Valley.

Thus, Axel of the Tower had the opportunity to speak with Infobae Mexico swork environmental, tourism and economic risks caused by unregulated urban growth in one of the wine-producing areas most important in Mexico.

Axel of the Tower had the opportunity to delve into the first steps he had within the group that is in a second fight, which started 10 years ago, and that, after urbanization, had to evolve with the support of the community of the wine region of Lower California in Let’s rescue the Valley.

What happened to the campaign? Let’s rescue the Valley It is that a fight that has been going on for more than 10 years and that in the last 5 years has taken a stir, especially because the Valle de Guadalupe began to turn into chaos, began to have a disorderly growth, it was very easy to get people to join between entrepreneurs and residents, because Valle de Guadalupe is being eaten by concrete”, he stated.

About how he was interested in this initiative, the architect graduated from the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) said that from the age of 11 he came to Guadalupe Valley hand in hand with his parents, so he fell in love with the environment that, at that time, managed to balance the quality of life with respect for the environment.

“Most of the people who live in the Valley are not from there, normally people who are not from there do not appropriate a place, here it is the other way around. In my case, I have been in the Valley for 11 years, I fell in love with the place, because my parents were from here and I was from Guadalajara.”, he added.

In relation to the figures that the experts have issued in various communications where they indicate that by 2037 the Valle de Guadalupe region, could be left without farmland due to erosion and water stress- which would leave the country without 75% of its wine production, Axel makes special emphasis that the figures are “optimistic” because urbanization advances without any impediment.

“It is more fragile than the statistics are not saying, it is very difficult to keep up with the development of urbanization […] what it does (the damage) is that the people or businessmen want to take advantage and start building in agricultural conservation zones, what is happening to Tulum is going to happen to us,” he stressed.

Added to this situation and due to deforestation in the last 6 years where they have destroyed at least a thousand hectares of conservation and production, Axel of the Tower It was surprising that during those years of opacity “18% of agricultural land was lost in El Valle” more than 5 thousand 445 cultivable hectares that were in 2017 and the Municipal Institute of Research and Planning (IMIP) of Ensenada predicts that less than half (2 thousand) will remain in 2027.

This would mean a significant loss within the zone, “most important in the country, with 75% of the national production of winewhich contributes 1% of agricultural GDP”.

About the support of the government of the state of Baja California, headed by Marina del Pilar Ávila, who said at the time that “would not allow Valle de Guadalupe to become the largest canteen in Mexico”, he stressed that, at least, in the speech there is a genuine interest in helping Let’s rescue the Valley.

“At least in the speech we have had support in caring for the environment, Marina said that ‘she would not allow Valle de Guadalupe to become the largest cantina in Mexico’, I think the intention is good, but it is an issue that has surpassed the municipal and state government, we should already think of federal, perhaps thinking of naming the Valley in a heritage zone”, he emphasized.

To avoid the disappearance of the area, the main actors of Let’s rescue the Valley have sent four specific proposals to the state authorities headed by Marina del Pilar Avila and the federal ones, being more specific, to the president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) with whom they share their vision of “rescuing the countryside”.

–Create state legislationin which the agricultural nature of the Valley is ratified, generating the necessary legal protection to respect it.

-Generate a new federal legal name to protect the agricultural heritage of the countrya denomination that protects the countryside and its culture, how natural areas are also protected.

-A Valley protection initiative before local Congressl and the Federal Congress.

-Appoint the Valle de Guadalupe as an “Zone of natural and cultural beauty”as established by the Baja California Cultural Heritage Preservation Law.

Finally, the 29-year-old architect acknowledged that the fight has fallen short, so a short-term solution to repair damage would be to turn the Valle de Guadalupe into a cultural heritage of Mexico, so that the authorities “turn to see” to the wine town.

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