MEXICO CITY.- The Isla Marías prison, the only island in Mexico used as a jail and located in Mexican territory, will no longer house 200 inmates and their families to turn the space into a center for the care of the environment and culture, as announced by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday.

This Monday, the president signed a decree that establishes the end of the jail and the development of this new project that will be called Muros de Agua: José Revueltas.

These are the keys to understand how the prison operated and what will be the process of transformation to a place reserved for culture:

What are Islas Marías
They are a group of islands that are located in the Pacific Ocean 112 km from the coast of the Mexican state of Nayarit. The largest, called María Madre, houses the Islas Marías Federal Penal House, a jail without bars that was created in 1905 by the then president Porfirio Díaz.

During the first years, it lodged to the worse criminals of the time, but to the step of the time it became a prison for prisoners of low dangerousness. As of 2009, the Mexican government promoted an open prison system for criminals with the same clinical profile so that they could live there with their own families.

The goal of the federal government at the time was to have a total of 5,000 inmates in the Islas Marías prison, who together with their families would have a total of 10,000 people.

The jail has a port and an airport to connect with the continent, which are heavily guarded by 80 elements of the Navy and 49 custodians. In addition, the island has a library, schools and hospitals.

In a press conference, Lopez Obrador said that in that federal prison there are to date 600 low-risk inmates, of whom 200 will be released in the coming days. The other 400 inmates will be relocated to social rehabilitation centers that are close to their places of origin and their families.

As for the workers, he said at a conference in the National Palace that they will also be relocated to prisons and prisons close to their homes.

As announced by López Obrador, the island will become a center for the arts, culture and knowledge about the environment and nature, the flora, the fauna of these and the other surrounding islands.

Josefa González Blanco Ortiz Mena, Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), informed that expeditions of students, children and young people will be organized and there will also be training workshops in which the boys will be able to practice in the nature reserve.

According to González Blanco, among the activities that will be implemented in this new center will be training in survival and flora and fauna monitoring, socio-environmental studies, literary studies, theater activities, creative writing, transformative art and sports activities.

Unique flora and fauna on the island
In 2010 the Marías Islands were declared by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, since in that territory there are several endemic species among which the Marías rabbit, the three-Marias raccoon, the mouse of the Marias, bobo and cenzontles birds, chameleons, the threatened marsupial Tlacuatzin Canescens, several species of sharks, and the gray whale, stand out.

The flora is varied and there are several cacti species such as cardones, biznagas, organs, nopal and garambullos, mezquites or carob trees, guayacanes, ceibas, palms, wild platanares, mangroves and poppies.

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