The fourth section of Chapultepec Park, commonly referred to as the Bosque de Chapultepec, opens on Saturday, offering a number of new facilities.
The 73-hectare space was donated by the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena), bringing the park’s area to nearly 800 hectares.
To celebrate the opening, the city government has announced there will be a cultural program Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The new section hosts a university for medical and nursing students as well as a new outdoor movie theater with capacity for 1,800 people. A new national art conservation facility will serve both as an exposition space and center of learning for art restoration students. Finally, the Vasco de Quiroga hermitage will be restored as part of the development.
“The essence of the project Chapultepec: Nature and Culture is that the space will be the largest biocultural park in the country,” authorities said in a press release. “It is one of the largest cultural complexes in the world and a space to be conscious of the need for social justice among humans and respect for different species.”
The operation of the Maya Train, the federal government’s signature infrastructure project, will double or even triple visitor numbers to Mexico’s southeast, the secretary-general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) predicted this week.
Zurab Pololikashvili, a former deputy foreign minister of Georgia, made the prediction after arriving in Yucatán on Wednesday to begin a multi-day tour of the region.
“Investing to facilitate the arrival of tourism to the southeast of Mexico will double or triple the flow of national and foreign visitors in the short term,” he told the news agency EFE, referring to the US $8-billion investment in the Maya Train railroad, which will run through Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas.
“It’s a great project because it will connect the most important tourist destinations in the Yucatán Peninsula,” Pololikashvili said, referring to cities such as Cancún, Mérida and Valladolid and archaeological sites including Uxmal, Chichén Itzá and Palenque. “It will be very successful,” he added.
Construction of the 1,500-kilometer railroad is scheduled to finish in late 2022 and the first services are expected to start sometime in 2023.
The head of the WTO at a meeting with President López Obrador earlier this week.
A doubling or even tripling of tourists would bring millions of additional people to Mexico’s southeast. Yucatán, for example, received just over 3.2 million visitors in 2019 – a new record – before tourist numbers plummeted in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Pololikashvili predicted that people will flock to Mexico’s southeast to travel on the Maya Train from anywhere it is promoted. Greater Mexico City, with some 25 million residents, could be a lucrative market for passengers, he said.
“… I believe that the government has taken a big step with this project, which is viable,” said Pololikashvili, who met with President López Obrador on Tuesday and thanked him for facilitating tourism by keeping Mexico’s borders open during the pandemic.
The UNWTO chief said that looking at ways in which development of rural and sustainable tourism in the Yucatán Peninsula can be boosted is a key objective of his visit. Some residents of rural Mayan communities have rejected the Maya Train, partially because they believe it will not bring any economic benefits to them.
But Pololikashvili suggested that there are ample opportunities to boost rural and sustainable tourism, which could bring jobs and much-needed revenue to areas outside large cities and towns.
Yucatán Tourism Minister Michelle Fridman Hirsch said that during the secretary-general’s visit authorities intend to enter into an agreement that will allow the Yucatán Tourism Advisory Council to become a formal member of the UNWTO.
Membership of the organization will bring a range a benefits that will have a “great impact for the region’s tourism community,” she said.
Unilever has announced plans to invest 5.5 billion pesos (US $277 million) in its four Mexican plants over the next three years. The company, which owns brands such as Knorr, Hellman’s, Dove and Holanda ice cream, plans to increase production of its food, hygiene and personal care products.
The company also announced that it will begin exporting ice cream to all of North America.
“This investment will allow us to grow the production and increase the exportation of our products by roughly 20 billion pesos [US $1 billion] over the next three years to our main commercial partners, which are the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Central and South America and some European countries,” said Reginaldo Ecclissato, president of Unilever in Mexico and Northern Latin America.
Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier celebrated the announcement.
“It speaks to importance of the USMCA [trade agreement] as a strategic point for exports,” Clouthier said. “Unilever directly provides work for more than 6,500 people, imagine what it is generating indirectly … investors have confidence in Mexico, its economy and the labor force.”
The four Unilever plants are located in Mexico City, Morelos and México state. The British-based company said the new investment will lead to the creation of 3,000 new jobs, directly and indirectly.
This stadium in Villahermosa is one of three due for an upgrade.
The federal government has announced that three baseball stadiums in Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche will be restored by the Ministry of Agricultural, Territorial and Urban Development at a cost of at least 219 million pesos (US $11 million).
In Cancún, Quintana Roo, the Beto Ávila stadium will be remodeled at a cost of 72 million to 202 million pesos (US $3.6 million to $10.2 million), according to proposals that have been offered. The state-owned stadium is home of the Quintana Roo Tigers, one of whose owners is former Major League Baseball pitcher Fernando Valenzuela.
The government said the choice to restore the Cancún stadium is part of a strategy to promote urban development in one of Mexico’s top tourism destinations. The stadium was last remodeled 14 years ago, and is showing signs of age. Laboratory tests showed that the structure was acceptable in strength, but authorities cautioned that without the restoration, the structure could become weak and be in danger of structural failures.
The Nelson Barrera Romellón stadium in Campeche, Campeche, will also benefit from an upgrade. The contract to restore the home of the Campeche Pirates has been awarded to Checa S.A. de C.V. for 75.7 million pesos, a portion of which will be paid by the state government. The restoration will improve current facilities and add two new buildings to the complex. The new spaces will feature a team store and a restaurant with a view of both the field and the ocean.
The third project is at the home of the Olmecas in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Like the Cancún stadium, the cost is expected to be between 72 million and 202 million pesos.
The stadium restorations are not the first for the federal government. It has already paid 89 million pesos to rehabilitate the stadium in Palenque, Chiapas, home of the Guacamayas, a team owned by Pío López Obrador, the brother of the president.
The federal government also provided 87 million pesos to restore the baseball stadium in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, and 600 million pesos to buy and restore a stadium in Hermosillo, Sonora. Altogether, the government’s recent expenditures on baseball stadiums total 995 million pesos.
President López Obrador frequently takes time to play the game, his favorite sport.
Anna Knutson Geller's workshop "Bang Out Your Book Proposal," will guide nonfiction writers on creating a document to win over book agents.
During the steamy temperatures of July the San Miguel Literary Sala is offering some online activities this month that you can enjoy without even leaving the house.
After the coronavirus pandemic made it inadvisable to hold its events in person in 2020, the San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, nonprofit — known for putting on the annual San Miguel Writers Conference — adapted and began offering its conference, as well as its year-round events, online.
The change has allowed the Literary Sala to book some very high profile guests: in May and June, celebrities-turned-authors Tom Hanks and Matthew McConaughey both graced their Zoom “stage.” Viewers even got a chance to interact with the stars in the live presentation over videoconferencing software to ask questions at the end.
This month, the Literary Sala’s offerings are meant to appeal to a variety of interests: they include a master class on writing book proposals, an author reading, a lyric-writing workshop in Spanish and a free virtual writing group event.
The events are interactive and live, conducted via videoconferencing. The format allows for questions like at an in-person workshop.
Oscar Plazola will lead the workshop “Ra Poesía,” in which he’ll teach participants about poetic meter and how to apply it in writing rap music lyrics.
The schedule is as follows with all times given in Central Daylight Time:
July 14, 7:30 p.m.: “Silent Write.” Nathan Feuerberg leads a monthly free online non-critique writing group on a videoconferencing platform. Participants will write for an hour with the aid of prompts. At the end of the hour, session participants will have the option of sharing their work with the group.
July 22-September 30, 5–7 p.m.: “Bang Out Your Book Proposal!” Book Proposal Master Class. Anna Knutson Geller will lead this two-month, six-class intensive online workshop for nonfiction writers teaching how to craft a winning book proposal. Participants will leave with a finished document ready to submit to agents. Participants must submit an application and be approved by the instructor.
July 22 and 23, 5:30–7 p.m.:“Ra Poesía.” A two-part workshop conducted in Spanish on narrative verse and rhyme, Oscar Plazola will instruct participants in writing verse and setting it to music and will expose them to great poets and rappers. The workshop will discuss aspects of meter, including the sonnet, the romance, the couplet and tenths, and how to apply them to structures used in rap music.
July 23, 5–6 p.m.: Gabrielle Brie. Part of the Literary Sala’s “In Focus” Series. Fine artist and poet Gabrielle Brie will read from her debut memoir, Tap Dancing on a Hot Skillet. Brie’s new novel is a coming-of-age story about growing up in a Jewish family of six in the Deep South.
Forensic personnel recover two bodies Thursday in Zacatecas.
A vicious battle for control of Zacatecas between Mexico’s two most powerful drug cartels continues with no clear end in sight.
The governor of the northern state, whose location between Pacific coast ports and Mexico’s northeastern border with the United States makes it a drug trafficking nexus, wrote to President López Obrador in February to seek federal government support because state and municipal security forces were outnumbered and outgunned by criminal organizations.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel are engaged in a bloody turf war with each other in Zacatecas.
“With opposing organized crime groups as the protagonists, the fierce fight for the control of territory has placed our state in a grave security crisis,” Alejandro Tello wrote.
But if anything the situation today is no better.
Both the army and the National Guard operate in Zacatecas but they have been unable to rein in the rampant violence. The state was the seventh most violent in the country in the first five months of the year with more than 600 homicides, and the security situation has only worsened during the past two weeks.
On June 19, three bodies were found hanging from a bridge in Fresnillo, a municipality “overtaken” by organized crime, according to the mayor, while the bodies of two slain San Luis Potosí police officers were hung from an overpass in Zacatecas city on Wednesday of last week. Seven people were massacred by gunfire in a Fresnillo home the same day.
Two days later, a gunfight between the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel in the municipality of Valparaíso, which borders Fresnillo as well as the states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Durango, left at least 18 people dead. Local media reports placed the death toll as high as 35.
Two bodies were found hanging from trees on Tuesday of this week – one in Fresnillo and one in Valparaíso – while authorities on Wednesday located nine more bodies, all of which showed signs of torture.
Two bodies were found in black plastic bags in a street in Fresnillo, four were discovered wrapped in blankets in Zacatecas city and three were located on a dirt road in the municipality of Morelos, located just north of the capital. Two of the three bodies discovered in Morelos were “crucified” – impaled back to back on the same cross.
The nine murders are believed to be linked to the territorial dispute between the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel.
Zacatecas ‘at the mercy of organized crime.’
Security expert Eduardo Guerrero asserted that the federal government’s non-confrontational security strategy – the so-called abrazos no balazos (hugs, not bullets) approach – has allowed criminal groups to operate with impunity in states such as Zacatecas and Tamaulipas, where massacres recently occurred in Reynosa and Ciudad Miguel Alemán.
López Obrador has established a line of “no direct confrontation with narcos” that cannot be crossed, he told the newspaper El País, highlighting the contrast with the administrations led by former presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, during which clashes between federal security forces and cartels were a “constant.”
Guerrero acknowledged that statistics show there has been a decline of massacres involving the army but charged that the cost of the non-confrontational strategy “has been enormous.”
“A number of areas have been left at the mercy of [organized] crime. This will generate more violence in the long term because there will be more competition [between criminal groups],” he said.
Guerrero also suggested that those groups are taking advantage of a political limbo between the June 6 elections and the swearing in of new governors in states such as Zacatecas, where David Monreal – who has urged Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez to strengthen federal law enforcement – will take office for Mexico’s ruling Morena party later this year.
In the case of Tamaulipas, Governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca is not scheduled to leave office until late 2022 but it is unclear whether he will reach the end of his six-year term because federal authorities are pursuing him on organized crime and money laundering charges.
“Criminals take advantage [of political limbo] to carry out attacks because the chance of them going unpunished is very high. A lot of the time [criminal] groups aspire to [control] … a territory to sell or store drugs or to extort but they don’t [act to seize the territory] because the government is on their tail. But if they see [the government] as weak, they immediately carry out high risk tasks, like what happened in Reynosa,” Guerrero said.
The president speaks at the National Palace on Thursday.
The federal government has improved Mexico’s security situation, President López Obrador declared Thursday in a speech to mark the third anniversary of his triumph at the 2018 presidential election, even though homicide numbers remain at near record levels.
“There is governability in the country. In public security matters we’ve also made progress, even with the complexity of the problem we inherited,” he said during a 40-minute speech at the National Palace in Mexico City.
“The criminal groups were already formed when we arrived in office in December 2018; I don’t believe that new groups have been created in these 2 1/2 years,” López Obrador said.
The president asserted that homicides have decreased 2% “in the time we’ve been in government” but didn’t specify the period with which he was making the comparison.
López Obrador also said that kidnappings, vehicle theft and home burglaries have declined by 41%, 40% and 26%, respectively.
Extortion, femicides and robberies on public transit have increased by 26%, 14% and 9%, respectively, he added.
Although he has continued to use the armed forces for public security tasks and created a new security force, the National Guard, the president asserted that his administration’s security strategy is different from those of his predecessors, which relied heavily on the military to suppress organized crime.
The government is combatting criminal organizations such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel not by “declaring war on them” but with “other more humane and effective means,” López Obrador said, apparently referring to the government’s social programs that ostensibly address the root causes of violence, namely poverty and lack of opportunity.
“Violence cannot be confronted with violence,” he said before highlighting that the government is “attending to young people” with programs such as Youths Building the Future, an apprenticeship scheme.
The electoral season leading up to municipal, state and federal elections on June 6 was the most violent on record but López Obrador instead highlighted that there were no massacres that sowed fear among citizens before they were due to go to the polls.
“… There were no massacres, violence wasn’t unleashed against innocent citizens to fill them with fear. In Guerrero, for example, no candidate suffered an attack and almost the same thing happened in the majority of states,” he said.
3er año del triunfo histórico democrático
However, a report by risk analysis firm Etellekt, which tracks election campaign violence, shows that politicians and candidates were murdered in more than 20 states in the lead-up to the elections, including Guerrero.
While AMLO, as the president is widely known, appeared to be referring to an absence of politically motivated massacres, there were almost 40 acts of violence in the first six months of this year considered massacres because five or more people were killed, the newspaper Reforma reported.
Speaking before an audience that included members of his cabinet and Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the president also said that Mexico is recovering from the dual health and economic crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Indeed, the intensity of the pandemic has waned considerably in recent months as Covid-19 vaccines are rolled out across the country and the economy is predicted to grow by almost 6% this year after a slump of 8.5% in 2020.
AMLO, whose party Morena remains the dominant political force in Mexico despite losing its supermajority in the lower house of Congress on June 6, thanked health workers for their tireless work during the pandemic, acknowledging that they risked their lives to save others.
The federal government faced widespread criticism for not implementing a strict lockdown early in the pandemic, not testing extensively and not advocating forcefully for the use of face masks but López Obrador said that his administration had done “everything that is humanly possible to combat this pandemic and save lives,” including adding hospital beds, increasing the health budget, hiring more health workers and obtaining 57.3 million vaccines to date.
No person sick with Covid was left without a hospital bed, a ventilator or medical personnel to look after them, he said.
The president also highlighted a range of other government achievements including a 44% increase to the minimum wage; stable fuel prices; progress on major infrastructure projects such as the new Mexico City airport and the Maya Train; and the implementation of social programs, including the tree-planting employment scheme Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life).
In his 2 1/2 years in office, López Obrador has sought to dominate Mexico’s political discourse with his daily morning press conferences but he said today that he doesn’t possess nor aspire to have a “monopoly on the absolute truth.”
“… Our adversaries, I reiterate, will always receive from the government I represent respect and freedom to … the right to speak out without limits, repression or censorship. The times have changed,” he said.
“… Today we celebrate three years since the historic triumph of our movement and I still remember on December 1, 2018, on my way to the Chamber of Deputies to be sworn in as president of the republic, a young man approached us on a bicycle and shouted: ‘Don’t fail us,’” López Obrador said.
“I believe … I haven’t disappointed … that young man, nor those who voted for me three years ago. There are possibly those who imagined that [my government] would be different, those who have reached the conclusion … that they don’t share my ideas and don’t like my style of government, my style of governing. But nobody … can say that I haven’t fulfilled my commitment to banish corruption and use my imagination, experience and position for the benefit of the people and the nation,” he said.
“[More] achievements are in sight. Despite the pandemic and the suffering it brought, people haven’t lost their faith in a better future.”
At Surf's Up Café, the classic apple tart gets a splash of color with some ripe berries.
The city of Mazatlán stretches along the coast for about 12 miles; much of the beach is fronted with high-rise hotels and condos. Starting from the south, one goes from Centro Histórico and Olas Altas to the Golden Zone, the Marina and then seemingly the end, at Cerritos.
But if you stand on the point there and look out, you see a few buildings, one of which is Surf’s Up Café. Celebrating its 10-year anniversary, the restaurant sits on the beach with a killer view that stretches to the horizon and then north to the unobstructed and slightly wild coast.
The creation of chef and owner Leanne Wright, it has received the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence every year since it opened and in 2020, it garnered the prestigious TripAdvisor Travelers Choice Award, putting Surf’s Up among the top 10% in the world.
Creativity is the key word here, and both the breakfast and lunch menus boast dynamic (and delicious) takes on old favorites like the Barbecue Chicken Quesadilla or the “flavor-bomb” Chilaquiles Torta, as well as classics done perfectly. The Beach Burger has a well-deserved stellar reputation around town.
Leanne’s first idea had been to offer classic Mazatlecan dishes, but local friends convinced her to “do something different.” That freed the former nutritionist and pro boxer to use her talent and expertise to come up with a menu of healthy, tasty foods complemented by specials.
A healthy yet delectable Mini-Quiche Salad by the seaside is always a good decision.
The backstory of how Surf’s Up came about is not a common one; Leanne had planned to be a journalist and was also making her way through the ranks for a spot on the Canadian women’s boxing team when fate intervened: a horrific car accident in 2008 left her with a cognitive brain injury and many months of therapy and recuperation.
Everything she’d planned was derailed.
“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” she said.
Friends and family had always said she should open a restaurant, but until her accident, that wasn’t something she’d ever seriously thought about doing.
“I loved cooking, but culinary wasn’t my focus — writing was,” Leanne recalled.
As a girl, she’d helped her parents prep for a weekly Sunday roast, a British tradition. Her talent was in creating recipes and flavors.
“Every single person in my family is a phenomenal cook,” she said with a laugh.
Her parents had just retired and were thinking about opening an eco-friendly hotel in Belize. The stock market crash and her accident changed those plans.
Then, while on a vacation in Mazatlán, they all fell in love with the city. On a whim, they made an offer on a beachfront property for sale. When it was accepted, they went home, packed up and moved.
That was the start of the café and of El Sol la Vida, her parents’ B&B that’s now a vacation rental.
From the first year, Surf’s Up created a buzz with both the expat and local communities thanks to the gorgeous location and unique menu and the casual, welcoming atmosphere. Live music on weekend afternoons, a full bar and clever tropical cocktails add to the fun.
Nowadays, Surf’s Up is busy all the time, even through the hot summer and especially on Sundays. Much of the seating is outside, covered in a variety of ways from the sun but with sand between your toes. The most coveted tables are the two closest to the ocean, covered by palapas with views that go on forever.
One reason Surf’s Up has received the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence every year since it opened is probably its highly popular Beach Burger.
“I wanted it to feel like a part of nature — that’s why so much is outside,” Leanne explained.
Also impressive (and different) is the freshness of the food: Leanne sources local and organic when possible, orders small batches of organic Chiapas beans for their coffees and cooks everything to order — meaning that the chicken for each dish is cooked fresh, not pre-cooked and reheated.
It may take a few more minutes to get your food, but she believes the taste is worth it. Desserts are made on site too. Leanne points out that there are specific menu items to accommodate dietary issues and concerns and that she’s happy to adjust a dish if necessary.
“I put a lot of thought into making our food healthy,” she explained. “I want people to arrive feeling really good and leave feeling even better.”
I was happy to hear that my favorite dish is also hers, and is the most popular as well. Leanne told me that the “El Sol,” a potato pancake made with bacon, hash browns, onions and more, was the very first original recipe at Surf’s Up. It’s the only original dish still on the menu because it’s so well-liked.
Customers love the muffins too, with banana-coconut the hands-down favorite. Surf’s Up is also known for its signature aioli, made with yogurt instead of oil. Leanne likes to play with food and mix-and-match cultures, so you’ll find things like Chilaquiles Poutine, Potato and Cheese Pierogies smothered in a rajas cream sauce with poblano peppers and corn and a Chicken Burger with Black Beans and Mango Chutney.
With the restaurant’s success, Leanne is starting to think about her next project: a memoir with recipes.
“I want to do everything in my power to create a great experience,” she said. “The goal for me and all my employees is to make the customer’s experience a positive one.”
What: Surf’s Up Café. Breakfast and lunch. Pizza by announcement. Full bar. Espresso
When: Wednesday–Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday
Where: Avenida Ernesto Coppel #520, past Emerald Bay Resort, Mazatlán
How: Cell phone and WhatsApp: 669-164-1896, or contact the restaurant through its website or Facebook page
And: Reservations are suggested for big parties and weekends. Live music on Saturday and Sunday. (Call for details.) Booking for private events available.
Two Mexican climbers tackling the Seven Summits challenge have left the highest peak in North America in their wake, despite one of them being blind.
The feat has made Omar Álvarez and Rafa Jaime Jaramillo the first Latin American rope team with a blind member to tame Alaska’s 6,190-meter Denali, also known as Mount McKinley.
The Seven Summits challenge involves climbing the highest mountains on each of the world’s seven continents. The 19-day expedition on Denali in low temperatures ended two days ahead of schedule, on June 29. The pair had already conquered 6,961-meter Aconcagua in Argentina in January last year making Denali the second peak of seven.
Both climbers have a story to tell. Álvarez took up climbing to fulfill his father’s dying wish to have his ashes scattered on Mexico’s highest peak: Citlaltépetl, or Pico de Orizaba, a dormant volcano on the Veracruz-Puebla border. Meanwhile, Jaramillo has been blind since he was 18.
The next summit on the list is 5,891-meter Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa, which the pair plan to tackle later this year, they confirmed to Milenio. Then the highest mountain in the world, 8,849-meter Mount Everest, awaits.
Star of Animal Planet's 'Extinct or Alive' series Forrest Galante in a up-close-and-personal photo shoot with Mexican crocodiles. All photos courtesy Forrest Galante
Wearing an innovatively designed wetsuit, United States biologist and conservationist Forrest Galante in 2016 swam face to face with a crocodile off the Banco Chinchorro. In this region between Mexico and Belize, Galante had a unique opportunity to view American crocodiles in their natural habitat, thanks to a wetsuit that made him look like one of them.
“The more scary something seems to be, the more I’m interested in it,” Galante said. “Crocodiles are at the very top of that list.”
The wetsuit was designed in New Zealand using a strategy known as biomimicry. Different versions make the wearer look like different dangerous species, from sharks to crocodiles — instead of their prey.
This allows the wearer to get up close to these species, as Galante did when he and colleague Mark Romanov made the 2016 short film about the crocodiles, Dancing with Dragons.
“The fear factor gets in the way to have the opportunity to be face-to-face with one in crystal clear water,” Galante said. “Everybody has the misconception that they are totally merciless killing machines. It was a phenomenal, amazing experience, scary and exciting … It was a hands-on moment I live for.”
Galante uses a strategy called biomimicry to get close enough to document wildlife that are elusive or dangerous.
Galante has had many more such moments since then, including an incredible run of turning up living examples of species long thought extinct, on his Animal Planet TV show Extinct or Alive.
His new book, Still Alive: A Wild Life of Rediscovery, details those experiences. The cover shows him holding Fern, a Fernandina Island tortoise found on the Galapagos Islands and considered extinct for over a century.
Regardless of the medium, whether it’s books or TV, said Galante, his goal is “to inspire people to care about wildlife and conservation.”
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was in Indonesia, trying to help a crocodile trapped in a discarded tire. A letter from the president’s office shut down the rescue effort, and he left Indonesia.
Since then, he’s worked on Wet Markets Exposed, a TV show about these markets around the globe, including South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Some have attributed wet markets as a cause of the novel coronavirus.
“Wet Markets Exposed is not necessarily just about wet markets,” Galante said. “It’s about how we as a species, human beings, decide to treat wildlife.”
And, he added, wet markets “are not evil” but “need to be regulated and managed, with no trafficking in meat” or intermingling of different species’ blood, urine or feces.
“They need sanitation, sterilization, management,” he said. “That’s the message behind Wet Markets Exposed.”
Galante said that the “only commonality, no matter where I was in the world, is my love of wildlife. It doesn’t matter if it’s elephants and lions in Zimbabwe [where he’s from] or newts and fish in California. It all includes a fascination with wildlife, my own story, and our place in the environment and ecology.”
He’s done “tons of work in Mexico all the time,” he said, including in the Sea of Cortés. “I absolutely love Mexico,” he said. “I’m obsessed with Baja [California].”
He is working with a group on conservation efforts related to the endangered vaquita porpoise in San Felipe. His swim with the crocodiles on the other side of Mexico got him wider attention.
“I made this crocodile film,” he recalled. “I had very limited experience in filmmaking. It was the first film I ever made [with] a very, very shoestring budget.”
‘The more scary something seems to be, the more I’m interested in it,” says Galante. ‘Crocodiles are at the very top of that list.’
He knew the risks.
“I grew up in southern Africa,” he said. “I always feared crocodiles, and rightfully so. A million people get killed by crocodiles. A million people fall victim to crocodile attacks. So I was very much taught to fear crocodiles.”
Yet, he pointed out, the wetsuit gave him “a little bit of a competitive edge.”
“I would not completely say I was reliant on the suit,” he said. “[But] using that approach, that technology, gave me a better sense of confidence.”
With his friend and partner Mark Romanov shooting from underwater, Galante focused on the crocodiles. “You don’t have control of the situation,” Galante said. “It was intimidating but also thrilling.”
Several years later, Galante showed the film to the History channel and used it to successfully pitch a new show, Face the Beast. It involved traveling to Myanmar to investigate a report that crocodiles had massacred 1,000 Japanese soldiers during World War II.
Meanwhile, Extinct or Alive has taken him across the globe in pursuit of surviving members of species long considered vanished — including when he found Fern on the Galapagos Islands.
Before that episode, Galante said, “I still hadn’t caught or tracked or found an extinct species,” although he said he had photographic proof of the existence of one such species, the Zanzibar leopard in Tanzania.
On the Galapagos, Galante, his team and local biologists looked for the elusive tortoise while navigating lava flows and “brutal, brutal heat,” culminating in an exciting discovery — “a pile of tortoise poop.”
“Shortly after,” he recalled, “we found a bedding site. Five minutes [after], even less, under a bush, I found Fern … She was like a rock with legs.”
He called her “the rarest animal in the world.”
“There was one of them, no one else except for her,” he said. “It was crazy. It was a wonderful, exciting experience.”
Galante’s new memoir, Still Alive: A Wild Life of Rediscovery, was published by Hachette Books last month.
The find had a large global impact, he noted, with so much important hope for conservation. “She’s the poster child of global conservation, in a way,” he said.
Galante has since increased the number of species he’s rediscovered to eight. Sometimes there have been difficult moments — including what he called “bruised egos” on the Galapagos between his team and local scientists. Yet, he said, “everyone wants the same thing — promote conservation and wildlife.”
One source of frustration is the search for the Mexican grizzly bear, which continues to be classified as extinct.
“We don’t know if the Mexican grizzly bear is gone forever,” Galante said. “There’s some evidence loosely supportive of their existence. We don’t have anything concrete.”
For each extinct species he investigates, he uses a checklist of factors to see whether the conditions suggest hope. “Some of them check all the boxes,” he said. “The tortoise did not. Nobody had seen one for 114 years. It had four of five boxes.”
“The Mexican grizzly bear just doesn’t check too many boxes,” he said.
The bear species was not very abundant to begin with, he said. “It’s not like there were millions of Mexican grizzly bears,” he said. “The likelihood of them still being in existence is pretty small. It does not mean it’s not worth looking at. But the likelihood is already small.”
Yet, his overall quest is not always about the destination, he explained. “It’s about the journey.”
Rich Tenorio is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
