Taking off from Mérida’s airport, in Mexico’s southeastern Yucatán state, offers some breathtaking views: the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the unusual geography shaped by an asteroid millions of years ago. But you might also note something else: gaps in the forest cover gashed out by massive real estate projects — private neighborhoods that allow families to enjoy the good life and, on the side, dabble in land speculation.

Yucatán may be famous for its spectacular Mayan ruins, its underground caves and cenotes, and its delicious food. But the main reason for its growing popularity among locals and foreigners is more mundane: It’s Mexico’s safest state — and by quite some margin. Even as parts of the country are experiencing something resembling a civil war, Yucatán’s homicide rate is about 2 per 100,000 people, a tenth of the national average — by comparison, Florida’s 2022 murder rate was 7.2 per 100,000 people, similar to Mexico City’s.

Yucatán has historically been off major drug smuggling routes. It has enjoyed institutional stability. It’s also spending big in local policing. These are key security drivers, as I wrote with my colleague Maya Averbuch last year. When I recently stayed with my family at a beach house there for a weekend, we didn’t bother to lock our door at night. There are not many places in Latin America or even the U.S. — forget Mexico — where you can confidently do that.

Yet the result of that relative safety is increasing migration flows and an urban expansion that threatens a fragile environment: The Mayan Forest, stretching across the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize and northern Guatemala, hosts the largest remaining tropical rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon. The lack of a coherent development plan, the chaotic overlap of local and federal government jurisdictions and the complex legal framework for investors and indigenous communities has fueled anarchic growth and a real-estate frenzy. The joke is that in Yucatán any local would be able to sell you an “investment lot” if you want it — endless signs on the roads offer “unique” land deals. Yucatecos, and Mexican authorities and developers more broadly, should consider whether a model that threatens a treasure of biodiversity is really the one they want to follow.

While still small at 2.3 million, Yucatán’s population has grown by 40% between 2000 and 2020. Mérida, its capital, already has one million inhabitants. With Mayan folklore becoming trendy among American and Canadian tourists, arrivals at the main airport have quadrupled in the past two decades, and the economy has grown on average at about double the national pace since 2014. Building complexes are starting to pop up along the coast, and locals are already suffering the downsides of other mid-size Mexican cities, from traffic to water shortages and a horizontal urban expansion that gobbles up more forest every day. The state is eyeing a bigger trade integration with the U.S. through an expansion of the strategic Progreso port. Even Bernard Arnault, the French luxury tycoon, is betting on the region with the refurbishing of a 17th century estate near Mérida due to open in 2027 through his Belmond chain.

That delicate balance between economic progress and the environment is never easy to achieve. I am not necessarily arguing against growth here: Mexico needs to generate higher-paying jobs and economic activity; a good number of these investments have brought much-needed infrastructure upgrades and the restoration and preservation of historic architecture jewels. But you only need to check the Riviera Maya next door, where Cancún and Tulum are shadows of their former selves, to foresee the dangers of unplanned development. Collectively realizing — beyond empty greenwashing mottos — that nobody wins from an environmentally decimated Yucatán would be a first good step; enforcing tighter regulations in areas where the appearance of lawlessness prevails, would be another.

We haven’t quite seen that approach yet: Take the case of the Maya train, the majestic railway line that cuts through the Yucatán Peninsula, connecting Cancún to Palenque, in Chiapas. It was built by the military in record time, without much regard for the land it was crossing or the animal life it was displacing, much less any serious study forecasting potential demand. On top of being obscenely overbudget — $25 billion and counting — it’s been used by only a fifth of its estimated passenger traffic since its inauguration last year. If this is the public policy favored at the top of Mexico’s government, what’s to stop private investors trying to make a quick buck?

To be fair, this struggle between preservation and advancement is hardly unique to this region or even Mexico; it’s an emerging feature of any mildly successful tourist spot. What’s particular to Yucatán is its environmental fragility, which includes severe soil degradation and areas prone to fires — natural and manmade. In today’s world, progress means accounting for these impacts, not just build build build as if there was no tomorrow.

The good news is that several factors play in Yucatán’s favor: it’s still relatively isolated and scarcely populated, the political commitment to security has transcended several administrations and its culture dates back centuries, reinforcing a sincere appreciation for its historical and natural endowment (unlike Cancún, a government-led project that started in the 1970s).

Yet if this pace of development continues, 20 or 30 years from now, Yucatán will likely be radically different. The time to act is now.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

JP Spinetto is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin American business, economic affairs and politics. He was previously Bloomberg News’ managing editor for economics and government in the region.

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