Meet Nancy DeRosa, Director

Nancy DeRosa, founder and director,  was born, Nancy Nefzger, in San Francisco, California. Moved to the Eastern shores of Quintana Roo Mexico in 1984. In 1986, she along with her brother and husband, built a 29-room diving resort with technical cave and cavern dive center. In this year she started to cave dive and explore the local subterranean rivers, pioneering and exploring new systems, surveying, mapping, and guiding others.

In 1998 Nancy started  SAVE, A.C. Society of Akumal`s Vital Ecology or Salvamento Akumal de Vida Ecological, A.C. a grassroots non-governmental tax deductible organization, created in an effort to protect the valuable ecological resources in not only Quintana Roo but also throughout Mexico.

First project in 2000-2002, was in the defense of Xcacel and Xcacelito, the most important beach in all the Atlantic Ocean for number of sea turtle nests, and a previous Federal Park; SAVE sued 9 heads of government including President Zedillo in the hopes of preventing all new constructions. SAVE won the case in 2002 and for the first time in Mexican history, the government took back permission to build a 1500 room 3 restaurant project (phase 1) from a Spanish firm named Sol Melia.

2002 Project Hatchery for Aventuras Akumal Beach, home of Nancy and office of SAVE.  So many nests were being laid that SAVE was asked to have an extended hatchery. Under the direction of Flora and Fauna, we released 11,223 loggerhead and green newly hatched sea turtles, all healthy and ready for swimming…three babies released were albino.

2003 Litchinger´s first task as Secretary of Ecology for the Federal Government under newly elected President Calderon was to come to Xcacel and meet Nancy, which he did.

2003-2009 videos of ecocides, denuncias to PROFEPA.

2007 Three very important complaint letters to PROFEPA of large-scale devastations to the beach zone and the bay of Gran Bahia Principe hotel, then with over 4,000 hotel rooms,  all on 35 hectares zoned for 10 rooms per hectare or 350 rooms in total. Nov.1, 2007 Gran Bahia Principe started a fabricated case against Nancy that would span the next 4 and a half years.  It started with 5 trips to the AFI and PGR located in Cozumel.

July 26, 2008 an arrest warrant came to her home. The case included lies under oath. The people involved were 2 Supreme Court judges, 2 PGR agents, 2 neighbors in Aventuras Akumal, 1 Mexico City Biologist, and 1 court handwriting expert. . For the next 4 years, Nancy was a criminal, as in Mexico you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent.  This included bi-monthly trips to the supreme court in Cancun, answering their accusations, that never ended…

In 2011, she went to Mexico City to beg Alberto Tinaco, a  reporter working for Televisa to film a documentary that would for once and for all, clear these bogus accusations and give Nancy back her life.  They agreed.  The following documentary was aired on Televisa, on a Saturday night from 8:30 to 9:00, primetime, on a series called Los Reporteros (The Reporters). The segment title was Justicia Ambiental (Environmental Justice).The case was unstoppable until this documentary from Televisa was  aired on Nancy’s activism. Please find program below.

January 19, 2012, the case was dropped. Nancy became a free again. This case was based on the accusation that Nancy filled in a 20 x 30-meter mangrove. Conabio  (statistic entity for the Mexican government) states in the State of Quintana Roo, by 2010 more than 100,000 hectares of coastal mangroves have been filled in to make way for large, mostly Spanish, hotels. It is a CRIMINAL offense to fill in a mangrove; no one except Nancy has been accused of this in this State, and to date.

The years of 2007 to 2011 Nancy was not able to devote much or any time to her activism as she was SLAPP’ed, A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP)   

2010 she attended UN Climate Conference in Cancun. Nancy met others from Mexico and from around the world, who were also were devoted to making a better world.

2016 attended the UN Biological Diversity conference in Cancun.

2019… still working to make the difference.