Felix Gonzalez Canto, the outgoing governor of Mexico’s state of Quintana Roo, has designated more than 76,000 acres of the region’s Yucatan Peninsula as protected areas. This move will benefit millions of plants and animals who call the region home and is also expected to provide a boost to the area’s already thriving tourist industry.

The 28,000-plus acre Chichankanab Lagoon State Reserve and Bacalar Lagoon Ecological State Park were established to protect vital wetlands on the Yucatan peninsula’s mainland.  While the 49,000-plus acre Cozumel Forest and Wetlands State Reserve is being established on the island of Cozumel, a popular tourist destination that lies off the eastern coast of Quintana Roo, is being established to protect both forest and wetland areas.

“The new protected area of Cozumel is one of the most important conservation actions by the state government of Quintana Roo in many years. It not only represents a tool to preserve pristine tropical forest and endemic bird and mammal species, but it also helps to promote a sustainable development on the largest inhabited island in Mexico and the most important cruise destination in the world,” said Gonzalo Merediz, the executive director of Amigos de Sian Ka’an. “On the other hand, the official protection of the Chichankanab lake area creates the opportunity to create additional low impact ecotourism projects to help the local communities, which are among the poorest in the entire Yucatan region, while also protecting six endemic fish populations.”

In addition, the newly protected areas are expected to draw a number of birding enthusiasts to the Yucatan region, and are an important step in preventing the extinction of a number of endangered species throughout the region. Many efforts of the new park and nature reserves will work in conjunction with the efforts of the Sian Ka’an ecological park, which is located on the Caribbean coast near the city of Tulum.