I turned into really skeptical from the instant the PR rep for Hacienda Tres Rios reached out in advance this yr and invited us to go to the all-inclusive lodge and spa in Mexico’s Riviera Maya.
For one component, “all-inclusive” and “eco-friendly” generally tend to head collectively approximately in addition to peanut butter and pickled herring. As accountable vacationers with a expert recognition to uphold, we are extraordinarily aware of company tries at greenwashing in pursuit of the almighty ecotourism dollar.
For another, we located court matters in opposition to their figure company, Sunset World Resorts, from disgruntled rental proprietors at a special property. Apparently an inner rift withinside the family-owned commercial enterprise some years in the past led to an internet smear campaign, that’s now being resolved.
So you may in reality say that my spidey experience turned into tingling as we did our due diligence in learning Hacienda Tres Rios.
But the extra we found out approximately the lodge’s sustainability initiatives, consisting of an off-the-grid natural farm on which they grew a number of the culmination and greens served of their diverse restaurants, the extra intrigued we became.
Could there clearly be this sort of component as a simply sustainable all-inclusive? Could a big tourism improvement surely gain the area people AND offset its carbon footprint thru energy-saving initiatives?
We had been decided to discover for ourselves. And so it turned into that we headed returned to the Riviera Maya for the fourth time in 8 years to peer if the Playa del Carmen lodge turned into the actual deal, or only a money-grabbing pretender.
HACIENDA TRES RIOS HISTORY
It appears difficult to consider for every body acquainted with the improvement growth withinside the Riviera Maya today, however the whole location round Cancun remained pristine till 1970. At that point, the Mexican authorities and some distinguished neighborhood families (consisting of the proprietors of Sunset World) started out to apprehend the extraordinary tourism capacity of this historic stretch of Mayan jungle.
Sunset opened its first motel in Cancun in 1986, however it wasn’t till 2003 that they started out making plans an eco-luxurious lodge at the web website online in their famous Tres Rios Nature Park. It turned into named for its location, on 326 acres of tropical rainforests wherein 3 rivers (tres rios) meet the Caribbean Sea.
It’s the simplest vicinity on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in which you may locate 3 wonderful ecosystems– jungle, mangrove forest, and coastal dunes– in such near proximity. The upside of that is a fertile array of plants and fauna. The drawback turned into that it made the lodge’s strategic making plans degrees a great deal extra complex in phrases of making sure the project’s long-time period sustainability.
The method commenced with a 3-yr environmental effect assessment, which centered on maintaining the bond among the location’s interconnected ecosystems (consisting of seagrasses and coral reef offshore). According to Gabriel Santoyo, the Director of Sustainable Development for Hacienda Tres Rios, averting disruption of the water go with the drift at some stage in creation turned into vital.
To that end, developers increased all the roads in order that water should go with the drift below them, and used extra than six hundred pillars at special depths on the way to increase all the lodge’s homes as well. Santoyo took a lead position in replanting the mangrove forest (which incorporates 4 special species) after a typhoon hit the location in 2005.
“Mangroves are crucial due to the fact they are a transition location among sea and land,” he explains of the project. “It’s a efficient ecosystem, taking pictures carbon dioxide, changing it to leaves, which decompose and create a fertile location. Their difficult roots create a nursery, in which younger fish are protected. They additionally clear out out the water and launch it smooth into the sea.”
As a end result of those initiatives, the lodge (which opened in 2008) curves round a herbal bend withinside the river, with mangroves simply outdoor a number of the visitor room balconies. The nature reserve (of which simplest 3% is occupied via way of means of the lodge) is domestic to a hundred and twenty species of plant life and 19 species of animals (consisting of agoutis, coatimundis, anteaters, spider monkeys, white-tailed deer, herons, and extra).
