Finally: Announcement from Mexico on Vaquita Conservation
After months of anticipation, on 23 December 2014 the Government of Mexico finally released its official response to the recommendations of the July 2014 meeting of the international vaquita recovery team (Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita, CIRVA-5); see details in our News Item from August 2014. This took the form of a Regulatory Impact Statement (MIR de Impacto Moderado in Spanish) issued by the fisheries agency through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) (click here for the MIR). The MIR, along with a draft Agreement between the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) and SAGARPA (to read click here), was open briefly for public comment and is expected to come into force soon.
Key elements of the plan include:
- A complete ban for two years on the use of gillnets in the exclusion zone proposed by CIRVA.
- An exemption from the ban for the Gulf corvina fishery during the period 1 February to 30 April. This fishery targets spawning aggregations of a large croaker using a ‘rodeo’ or ‘round-up’ technique that encircles the fish with large-mesh gillnets, actively fished.
- Compensation to all fishermen and others who work in fishery-related activities (e.g., workers in shrimp packing plants).
- Creation of community enforcement groups to assist authorities in policing the gillnet ban.
CIRVA has provided comments on these documents, explaining some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Government’s plan (to read the comments in English, click here).
There is no doubt that this announcement represents a step forward. However, as indicated in the 7 December 2014 news item posted on this website, intensive gillnet fishing has continued both inside and outside the Vaquita Refuge, with no evidence of a significant effort to enforce existing regulations. Valuable time has been lost, and there is no way of knowing how much closer this has driven the vaquita toward extinction.