In December we rescue A true story which possibly served Michael Bay for his film ‘La Roca’, set in Alcatraz prison. Actually, it wasn’t so impregnablebut the jail (now converted into a tourist visiting space) has become notic again because Trump considers The idea of recovering it as “home” for the most dangerous criminals in the United States. The truth is that, before Alcatraz, Mexico already had such a prison.
From prison to sanctuary. For more than a century, The Marias Islands They represented the confinement, exile and hardness of the Mexican Penitentiary System. A story that changed from the definitive closure of its prison in 2019, when the remote archipelago in the Pacific began a surprising and unexpected transformation towards ecotourism and environmental conservation.
Located about 130 kilometers from the coast of Nayarit, the four islands, and in particular Mary Motherthey went from being the last Insular Criminal Colony from America to become a Biosphere Reserve managed by the Mexican Navy. In 2022 the visits organized for tourists began under strong security measures and with limited routes, where visitors can travel both the wild nature and the historical traces of a prison past plagued with dark stories. Penitentiary facilities still visible (such as cells, surveillance towers and a maximum security module) are now combined with hotels, trails, lush vegetation and endemic species that have survived thanks to isolation for millions of years.
Violence, punishment and resistance. Founded as Prison in 1905the Marías Islands housed many of the more dangerous criminals of the country, together with political dissidents, poor peasants and religious leaders during different historical stages. There were also opponents of the Government of Álvaro Obregón, Catholics in the time of the Cristero Warand figures Like the writer José Revueltassymbol of intellectual dissent.
The prison regime varied over time, since semi -liberated modalities in which some inmates lived with their families, even closed structures such as Maximum security section Open in 2011 after the militarization of the criminal system during the war against the narco. In these facilities, described as replicas of American prisons, prisoners lived with extreme punishments, such as the existence of a metal cabin that functioned as a solar heat torture chamber. In fact, The BBC counted that rumors of undercover executions and clandestine burials are still persists in the other islands of the archipelago, occasionally frequented by illegal and drug traffickers.
Overpopulation During the last decades of operation as prison, serious overpopulation episodes were experienced, particularly notorious in the 2000s. The angels Times counted and testimonies collected by Mexican media Like the universal and Processat some times they came to live More than 8,000 inmates In precarious conditions, in facilities originally designed to house much less.
An especially shocking example was reported by a former inmate who, in 2022, recalled that 500 women They shared only five bathroomssituation that described how to live in a “chicken coop.” Although as we said, in the beginning the prison had a relatively open regime (even allowed some inmates to live with their families), the hardening of the penitentiary policy after the War against drug trafficking In 2006 and the opening of the maximum security module aggravated overcrowding. Complaints of insufficient rations and lack of medical care derived even in A riot in 2013after which the module closed. The combination of structural deterioration, lack of resources and social pressure ended up leading to definitive closure of the prison in 2019.
Biodiversity Then came the “second life” of the islands. Despite its gloomy legacy, the natural wealth of the archipelago has survived and even flourished. Since 2010, when the prison still worked, UNESCO recognized the Marias Islands as a biosphere reserve for its unique ecosystem, composed of dry forests, mangroves, coral reef, coasts and endemic fauna such as the Loro Tres MaríasMapaches and rabbits that do not exist anywhere else on the planet.
Many of these species suffered during the penitentiary period (they say Some inmates hunted snakes to make belts or trafficked parrots with the help of relatives). Today, the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp) works with the Navy to protect this biodiversity, although the challenges are maintained, especially For illegal fishing. Despite the restrictions imposed since 2000 and reinforced in 2021, scientists such as Marino Octavio Aburto-Opeza Biologist warned that Companies still operate that offer recreational fishing or with harpoon without effective control, which puts at risk the fragile ecological balance of the area.
Tourism (responsible). Today, visits to María Madre have become a strange mixture of biotourism and historical memory. Tourists, mostly Mexicans, are attracted to both the wild and The history of suffering inscribed in cells, corridors, murals and cemeteries. It explained the BBC With examples, such as the tomb of “El Sapo”, an alleged state murderer Macheted killed For their cell partners, or the esculos of octopus made by inmates who decorate still closed rooms, episodes that generate an environment between the surreal and moving.
In short, although the current approach gives priority to contact with nature and environmental education, the main attraction for many remains the same as in Alcatraz: the possibility of walking for what was once a penitentiary hell. Thus, in the experience of the visit two stories live together: that of an infamous prison that functioned as a tool for social control and repression for more than a century, and that of a resilient ecosystem that now seems to offer a promise of redemption through responsible tourism and collective memory.
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