It is the first time industrial development has been halted in Mexico for environmental concerns. The project became a public-relations nightmare for Mitsubishi, with U.S. celebrities and an international coalition of activists leading the campaign against it. Opposition galvanized around saving the whales–despite scant evidence that the $120 million plant would have actually hurt the giant mammals.
Mitsubishi did acknowledge that the facility would have scarred the landscape of the San Ignacio Lagoon, part of a “biosphere reserve” created in 1988. Environmentalists feared the plant would spur development in protected areas in other poor countries.
