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The environmental commission of the T-MEC asks to investigate Mexico for the lack of protection of the vaquita marina

2022-04-14T01:11:18.988Z


The body seeks to clarify why the authorities have not been able to stop illegal fishing in the cetacean refuge area


The environmental commission of the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico (T-MEC) wants to investigate the Mexican authorities for the collapse in the population of the vaquita marina, the most endangered marine mammal on the planet.

After years of protection programs, announcements of cooperation with environmental organizations and reports full of numbers on actions to conserve the cetacean, the reality is that its extinction is getting closer every day: scientists estimate that there are between seven and eight vaquitas left in the Upper Gulf of California, compared to the almost 600 that existed in 1997. For this reason, the T-MEC Commission for Environmental Cooperation has recommended opening a file to study in depth whether Mexico has done enough so that the species does not disappear.

In the resolution released this week, the body concludes "that there are still relevant open questions, which are unanswered, regarding the application of relevant laws and agreements by Mexico."

The environmental authority seeks to know if Mexico is adequately monitoring the refuge area of ​​the cetacean in the Upper Gulf of California, where powerful interests converge that have proven to be stronger than conservation efforts: organized crime controls the illegal fishing of totoaba there, a fish that is also in danger of extinction and whose swim bladder (known as a crop) is coveted in China for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac powers.

For the largest ones, they can pay up to 60,000 dollars.

In its brief, the commission says that the investigation would also allow it to obtain information "on the organized groups that participate in the illegal fishing, storage, distribution, transportation and marketing" of totoaba.

The predation of that fish is the main threat to the world's smallest cetacean, which becomes entangled and dies in the gillnets used by poachers.

In response to requests for information from the agency, the Mexican authorities assured that they confiscated more than 2,300 totoaba maws, imposed fines of 337 million pesos (17 million dollars) and recovered 384 illegal nets between September 2019 and September 2021. However , the commission continues to see holes in Mexico's efforts to protect the vaquita.

The process began in August of last year, when the Center for Biological Diversity and three other environmental organizations submitted a request for the agency to investigate the Mexican government for "incurring in omissions in the effective application" of its environmental laws, which violates the commitments reached in the trade agreement between the three countries.

“For decades, Mexico has broken a series of promises to save the vaquita.

Since it is apparently incapable of protecting this species and its habitat, the international community must intervene,” said DJ Schubert, a wildlife biologist at the Animal Welfare Institute, one of the groups that filed the complaint.

A Mexican Navy vessel patrolling the waters of the Upper Gulf of California where the vaquita marina lives, this month. Helena Constela Lorenzo (Sea Shepherd)

Now, the council of the environmental commission of the T-MEC, which is made up of the heads of the Secretaries of the Environment of the United States, Canada and Mexico, has until next July 5 to vote if it authorizes the start of the investigation.

Canada will most likely have the last word, as the United States is expected to vote in favor and Mexico against opening the file.

If it goes ahead, it could put pressure on the Mexican authorities to strengthen surveillance in the cetacean's refuge area, where illegal fishing continues: according to the Center for Biological Diversity, between January and March of this year hundreds of illegal boats in the area, where even transit is prohibited.

These data are far from what the Government of Mexico has been saying in recent months.

At the beginning of April, the Mexican Navy assured that, thanks to a new collaboration agreement with the environmental organization Sea Shepherd implemented in January, they achieved "a substantial reduction in the number of fishing boats" in the refuge zone during the first three months of the year.

Pritam Singh, the president of Sea Shepherd, said illegal boats seen in the area dropped from between 58 and 27 in the first few days of the year to between three and one on his last tour.

The environmental group reached an agreement to collaborate with Mexican authorities after months of having their hands tied in the region.

Since June of last year, the Government announced that only the Navy could remove the illegal nets from the water in the zero tolerance zone, which meant ending the main work that the environmental group had been doing.

So Sea Shepherd began working with the Navy to alert them whenever they found a net or boat fishing illegally.

"In the last three months we have seen a marked difference in the way the Navy responds to what is happening in the shelter," Pritam Singh told EL PAÍS.

"They are doing what they should do."

If the investigation of the T-MEC environmental commission is opened, it is possible that the discrepancies about what is really happening in the waters inhabited by the vaquita will be clarified and, with luck, its extinction will be avoided.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-04-14

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