S.O.S. Bahia started as a grassroots movement of ordinary citizens dedicated to the rescue and long-term preservation of the ecological integrity of the Bay of Zihuatanejo.

You hear this again and again here in Zihuatanejo: “At one time this was truly Paradise...” People will shake their heads and sigh and then go on about their business, which, sadly enough, often involves aggravating the situation they just bemoaned. 

In 1997, a group of concerned Zihuatanejo lovers - both locals and foreigners - decided to rescue what was left of this Mexican Eden. By 1999 they had merged various ad hoc groups and officially founded S.O.S. Bahia, the Movement for the Rescue and Preservation of the Bay of Zihuatanejo, which in 2001 was registered as an environmental association with a legal identity under which to operate.

Since then, we have tried to promote environmental awareness in the local population, advocate the sustainable development of the bay's surroundings, stop water pollution, protect wildlife and its natural habitats in and around the bay, and stop irresponsible development projects that threaten to destroy the fragile equilibrium of our bay's environment.

A large and very important part of our activities consists of collecting and distributing information about the issues concerning the bay. To this effect, we have produced documentary videos, some of which were shown in open-air presentations on the local “zócalo” (town square) and were followed by lively discussions with the audience. We have produced educational power-point presentations that were presented at the local schools. 

For a short while we operated our own community radio station “El Faro”, together with a very creative and dedicated group of young people who produced and broadcast excellent reports on the environmental issues affecting Zihuatanejo.

In 2001, S.O.S. Bahia invited over 200 teachers from Zihuatanejo to participate in the first "Environmental World Game", an interactive global simulation workshop organized by S.O.S. Bahía and the Philadelphia-based World Game Institute, a renowned organization founded by the late Buckminster Fuller, to find sustainable solutions for global problems. We have also sponsored numerous beach clean-up outings involving the local schools and communities.

When S.O.S. Bahia started in 1999 as a grassroots movement, one of our main concerns then - as now - was a disastrous tourism project planned by private investors (Puerto Mio, also operating under Inmobiliaria Punta del Mar) and supported by the federal tourism development agency FONATUR. The project envisioned the construction of a solid rock jetty that was to act as a cruise ship pier in the middle of our small bay, thereby practically privatizing Zihuatanejo's most important natural asset and common resource. 

By 1999, S.O.S. Bahia's “Movement for the Rescue and Preservation of the Bay of Zihuatanejo” organized two public forums, a number of massive protest marches, and spent countless hours in meetings with various municipal, state and federal government officials, the project's developers and their lawyers, and managed to stop construction of the jetty twice. After various unsuccessful attempts to build the jetty without complying with the legal obligation of conducting and presenting the necessary environmental impact studies, the project's developers and investors abandoned the jetty which, in its stumped form, today acts as an obstacle to the natural flushing and cleansing currents of the bay.

The cruise ship pier proposal, however, has once again been resurrected, this time in complicity with the federal Department of Transportation and Communication which already gave the construction contract for the pier to an outside marine construction company, PROCOMAR, S.A. de C.V.

The plan now is to build a huge piled cruise ship pier in the very center of the bay. Once constructed, the cruise ship pier would be large enough to allow three cruise ships to dock and disembark passengers simultaneously, which doubtlessly would spell the end of Zihuatanejo as a beach resort destination and could cause the collapse of its upscale tourism and real estate markets, not to mention the traditional local fishing industry.

S.O.S. Bahia is working hard to stop the proposed pier project and is currently discussing legal options with several Environmental Law and Human Rights organizations in Mexico.

The Bay and City of Zihuatanejo are located in the state of Guerrero, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, at the base of the Sierra Madre del Sur, 200 mi (325 km) SW of Mexico City, and 125 mi (200 km) NW up the coast from Acapulco, .