Introduction:

The Mexican coast offers a suitable habitat for the breeding and sheltering of turtles. However,its attributes on the Chalacatepec coast, in Jalisco, this ability may be threatened by the construction and operation of the Development Vistas Project (PDV), a mixed resort: hotel, residential, commercial and recreational. The objective of this research is to evaluate the potential of tourism on nesting turtles impact in two stages: a) Preparation and construction b) Operation and maintenance, as a support tool for decision making in the conservation of the Lepidochelys olivácea(olive ridley), Chelonia agassizii (black turtle) y Dermochelys coriácea(leatherback turtles).

Method:

Nesting density (nests per kilometer) was calculated and the evaluation multicriteria method (EMC) discrete Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to estimate the impact of tourism. Eight threats were identified: cleaning, excavation, filling, noise pollution, solid waste, presence of site personnel and temporary buildings, artificial beachfront lighting and concentration of visitors. A comparison matrix was constructed, assigning a weight to each threat, and a tourism potential impact map was generated using GIS.

Results:

The threats more weight or weight (total eigenvector) were filled (0.36482) and the concentration of visitors (0.38194). The construction and tourism operation can affect 59.8% of the nests and impact mainly on the south coast the 1 km (1142 records of nests) and, on the north coast the 1 km (329 nests), km 3 (311 nests), km 4 (268 nests) and 5 km (151 nests).

Discussion or Conclusion:

Chalacatepec is a nesting beach of great importance for the conservation of sea turtles. EMC was an appropriate tool to estimate the consequences of tourism and could help to the appropriate authorities to decide whether the PDV should be built.