Today, when a gray whale lifts its head beside a small boat in San Ignacio Lagoon and lets a hand reach out to touch it, it is hard to imagine that this place once came close to vanishing beneath tons of industrial salt. Yet that is exactly what almost happened. At the end of the last century, this sanctuary, one of the most pristine corners of the planet, became the stage for one of the most important environmental battles in history.
This is the story of how a group of people, in Mexico and beyond, managed to stop one of the most powerful corporations in the world and save the last untouched refuge of the gray whale.
A one-of-a-kind place on Earth
To understand what was at stake, you first have to understand what San Ignacio Lagoon is. Located in the municipality of Mulegé, in Baja California Sur, it forms part of the El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest protected natural areas in Latin America and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Every winter, gray whales travel thousands of kilometers from the northern seas to these warm, calm waters to mate and give birth. And San Ignacio holds a value that cannot be replaced: it is the last of the great gray whale nursery lagoons that remains free of industrial development. A place where these giants can be born and raise their calves with almost no human interference, and where that extraordinary phenomenon occurs in which mother whales approach the boats of their own accord. On top of that, the lagoon is a haven for migratory birds, sea turtles, and an immense variety of marine life.
In other words, it is not just another spot on the map. It is one of the few places of its kind left in the world.
The threat: a saltworks in the whales’ sanctuary
In 1994, the company Exportadora de Sal (ESSA) set its sights on the lagoon. ESSA was no ordinary firm: it was, and still is, owned by the Mexican government (51%) and the Japanese corporation Mitsubishi (49%), and it already ran one of the largest saltworks on the planet in Guerrero Negro, supplying a large share of the salt imported by Japan.
The plan, formally announced in 1995, was to build an even bigger facility at San Ignacio: the largest industrial saltworks in the world. Broadly speaking, the project called for:
- Vast evaporation ponds that would cover much of the area surrounding the lagoon.
- The extraction of hundreds of millions of tons of water each year, driven by powerful pumps.
- A pier for large ships to load the salt bound for international markets.
For those who knew the lagoon, the consequences were alarming: changes in the salinity of the water, constant industrial noise, endless boat traffic, and a deep disruption of the fragile balance that the whales and all the life of the lagoon depend on. The conclusion was hard to avoid: the sanctuary and the factory could not coexist.
And the most discouraging part was the opponent. At the time, stopping a project backed by the government and by a giant like Mitsubishi seemed, quite simply, impossible.
A battle that crossed borders
The first spark came from researcher Serge Dedina, founder of the organization WiLDCOAST, who brought the plans to light. From there, one of the largest environmental campaigns in history took shape, with an uncommon feature: it united Mexican and international voices in a single front.
On the Mexican side, the poet and activist Homero Aridjis, leader of the Group of 100 (Grupo de los Cien), publicly denounced the damage the project would cause. From the United States, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) added legal weight and communications power. And, above all, ordinary people joined in. Among the many forms that pressure took, a few stand out:
- Close to one million protest letters sent to Mitsubishi and the Mexican government.
- Renowned scientists, including whale specialists, who warned of the ecological impact.
- International public figures — from explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau to activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who lent their voices to the cause.
- Calls to boycott Mitsubishi’s products until the company backed away.
The message was firm and simple: a place like this is priceless and cannot be sacrificed for salt. Sustained over five years, that pressure turned a local dispute into a global conversation and proved that civil society could stand up to the most powerful of interests.
The turning point
The outcome arrived on March 2, 2000. On that day, Mexico’s then-president, Ernesto Zedillo, announced the definitive cancellation of the saltworks project at San Ignacio Lagoon.
The news was celebrated for what it was: one of the greatest environmental victories of modern history. Against all odds, a citizens’ movement had managed to stop a corporate giant. The lagoon was safe, and with it, the future of the gray whales that return every year to give birth.
After the victory: tourism that protects
The story, however, did not end there. Protecting the lagoon for good required more than canceling a project: it meant offering local communities a sustainable way of life tied to conservation rather than industry. In fact, watchfulness had to continue for years to keep the threat from resurfacing.
That is when responsible whale watching tourism rose as the great alternative. The families of the ejidos surrounding the lagoon found in ecotourism a way to earn a living by caring for the very thing that had nearly been lost. To that effort were added land conservation agreements and alliances to keep the lagoon safe over the long term.
Today, every person who arrives to marvel at the whales becomes part, without even knowing it, of that web of protection. Tourism done right became the sanctuary’s best guardian.
Experience the story firsthand
At Kuyimá, they know this story like few others: they have lived and worked on the shores of San Ignacio Lagoon for more than three decades, and they are part of the very community that chose to protect the lagoon through responsible tourism. Their local guides accompany travelers to their encounter with the gray whale with respect and care, and on every trip they share the soul and the memory of this place.
That is why they invite everyone who wants to be part of this story to join a gray whale watching tour in San Ignacio Lagoon and discover, firsthand, the sanctuary that the whole world helped save.
