A new regional investigation says federal construction authorizations in Bahía de Banderas rose 246 percent over six years while environmental defender Erik Saracho faced legal pressure, online attacks, and, in March, an armed assault outside his home in San Pancho.
Saracho, founder of Alianza Jaguar and a longtime figure in local environmental defense, survived the March 11 shooting in San Francisco, better known as San Pancho, a coastal town in Nayarit’s Bahía de Banderas municipality.
The investigation does not identify who ordered the attack. It places the assault inside a longer conflict over real estate growth, community opposition, and pressure on people defending land, water, and coastal ecosystems in the Riviera Nayarit corridor.
Construction pressure in Bahía de Banderas
The review found that the federal Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) authorized 508 houses and apartments in Bahía de Banderas in 2018. By the end of the next federal administration, that figure had reached 1,759.
The investigation says a review of Semarnat’s weekly ecological gazettes found about 7,000 new real-estate units authorized in the municipality between 2019 and 2026. The total included homes, apartments, villas, cabins, hotels, restaurants, sports centers, and entertainment venues.
That pace has sharpened disputes in communities such as San Pancho, where local groups have challenged projects they say exceed density limits, encroach on federal zones, or place additional pressure on water, traffic, and fragile coastal areas.
One recent flashpoint is the project known as Ysuri, also referred to as San Pancho Sunset. The investigation says community members questioned the project’s footprint, its proposed number of apartments, and its proximity to federal and estuary areas.
The same bay has already faced scrutiny over Kovay Gardens’ use of new names following U.S. sanctions, a separate case tied to timeshare fraud allegations. In February, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Kovay Gardens, five people, and 17 companies it said were associated with a CJNG-linked network.
The attack in San Pancho
A March urgent action from human rights groups said Saracho was attacked around 6:30 a.m. on March 11 in San Francisco. He was shot and taken to emergency medical care.
Saracho was already enrolled in Mexico’s protection system for human rights defenders and journalists. According to the urgent action, the police took more than an hour to arrive at the scene after the attack.
The Nayarit Fiscalía later released a video of the suspected attacker and offered a 100,000-peso reward for information that could help identify or locate him.
Before the shooting, Saracho had filed a January 19 complaint over digital harassment, according to the June investigation. The report also describes online posts and comments aimed at discrediting him inside local social media spaces.
Saracho told the investigation that when a community faces larger economic or natural-resource interests, there is “greater risk or vulnerability to being attacked.”
Indira Santos, an activist close to Saracho, has called for the case to receive federal attention. After the attack, she said the goal was “orderly development, in law and thinking about the sustainability of the communities.”
Bahía de Banderas Mayor Héctor Santana condemned the shooting after it became public. “Violence never has a place,” he said in a message cited after the attack.
A conflict beyond one project
The case has drawn attention because San Pancho sits inside one of western Mexico’s fastest-changing coastal zones. The area is close to Puerto Vallarta, Sayulita, Bucerías, Punta de Mita, and La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, where tourism, residential development, and land values have moved quickly.
That growth has brought jobs and investment. It has also produced conflicts over beach access, water supply, environmental permits, and public trust in land-use decisions.
Saracho’s case now sits at the center of that tension. The construction numbers show how fast Bahía de Banderas has changed. The attack shows the risk faced by people who publicly challenge that change.
Authorities have not announced a final resolution in the shooting. The latest investigation says Saracho has had to leave his home and relocate elsewhere in Mexico while the case remains unresolved.
