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Conservationists urge Mexico trade sanctions over near-extinct porpoise
GENEVA, Aug 24, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Conservationists are urging countries to
slap trade sanctions on Mexico over its failure to rein in illegal fishing
that could doom the vaquita marina porpoise to extinction within months.
With only around 10 vaquita believed to remain in their sole habitat off
northwestern Mexico, environmentalists insist only “drastic measures” can
rescue the world’s smallest porpoise from disappearing altogether.
They are appealing to countries attending the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva to wield the treaty’s harshest
sanction in a bid to force Mexico to ensure the vaquita’s survival.
“The parties should sanction Mexico and put a ban on trade of CITES-listed
species from Mexico until they get the situation under control,” Zak Smith,
Director of International Wildlife Conservation for the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC), told AFP.
CITES, which regulates trade in more than 35,000 species of plants and
animals, has the power to sanction countries that break the rules or fail to
rein in illegal trade in species protected under the treaty.
Known as “the panda of the sea” for the distinctive black circles around
its eyes, the vaquita has been decimated by gillnets used in the Gulf of
California to fish for another endangered species, the totoaba fish.
– ‘Cocaine of the Sea’ –
The totoaba’s swim bladder is considered a delicacy in China and can fetch
up to $20,000 on the black market.
The lucrative market for the swim bladders has turned the Gulf of
California into a battleground, as armed poachers use drug cartel-like
tactics to get hold of the “cocaine of the sea”.
Policymakers from more than 180 countries attending the 12-day CITES
meeting are due to discuss the plight of the vaquita on Monday and could —
in theory — heed environmentalists’ calls for sanctions, although such a
move is unlikely.
Environmentalists say they hope the parties will at least warn Mexico that
sanctions will be on the table if it does not show progress in safeguarding
the vaquita.
“If the CITES parties don’t respond at this meeting and take drastic and
dramatic action to compel Mexico to do more… this could be the meeting
where the final nail is put into the vaquita coffin,” said DJ Schubert, a
wildlife biologist with the Animal Wildlife Institute.
Mexico, meanwhile, is adamant that it is doing everything possible to save
the vaquita, and should not be sanctioned.
“I don’t believe that a simple solution like penalising Mexico will serve
the vaquita,” Hesiquio Benitez Diaz, the country’s Director-General of
International Cooperation and Implementation, told an event last week on the
sidelines of the CITES meeting.
In 2015 Mexico’s government declared a ban on fishing in a 1,300 square
kilometre (500 square mile) area off the coast of San Felipe, but has been
unable to rein in the rampant illegal fishing in the area.
“The situation of organised crime that is operating in the region goes
beyond the capacity of many governments,” Diaz said, stressing that “these
people are better armed than our authorities.”
However environmentalists insist Mexico could police the small area where
the vaquita live if it were willing to put in the resources.
The region “is smaller than the size of the city of Los Angeles,” Smith
said.
– ‘Tragedy’ –
Mexico, meanwhile, is calling for a “more creative” approach.
It has asked for CITES approval to set up totoaba fish farms, which it
maintains would satisfy the demand for swim bladder and drive down the price,
thereby removing the incentive for poachers.
Critics warn that opening a legal market for captively-bred totoaba would
provide an opportunity for laundering illegally poached totoaba.
And even if the plan worked, they say it would not help in the short term,
since the demand is for large swim bladders, from large fish, which would
take years to breed.
“By that time, it would be too late to save the vaquita,” Alejandro
Olivera, who works in Mexico for the Center for Biological Diversity, told
AFP.
Mexico has also made other “creative” attempts to save the vaquita
porpoise. In 2017, it launched a plan to round up all remaining vaquitas and
relocate them to a protected area.
But the project was aborted when one of the first captured vaquitas died.
Now, Olivera said, scientists are trying to gather vaquita DNA samples “so
that in the future, we can bring them back.”
If the vaquita does become extinct, it would be the first species listed
under CITES highest-priority Appendix I to suffer that fate since the treaty
took effect four decades ago.
“It would be a tragedy,” Smith said.
“If we can’t save the vaquita, what does it say about all of our efforts to
save wildlife?”
BSS/AFP/GMR/0954 hrs