Environmental authorities in Mexico say they have denied permits for a proposed hotel near one of Mexico's most important sea turtle nesting beaches on the Caribbean.
The 520-room hotel project would have erected 23 buildings and an artificial lake on property just inland from the Xcacel beach, north of the resort of Tulum.
The federal Environment Department said in statement late Monday the project could threaten Xcacel, and called it "the site with the largest observed nesting of sea turtles on the entire Yucatan Peninsula."
The beach is a nesting site for loggerhead, hawksbill and green sea turtles . . .
