translated from Spanish: “It will be a shame that Mexico has let the vaquita go extinct”

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus), is a small porpoise of only 1.5 meters, endemic to the Sea of Cortez in the Upper Gulf of California in Mexico, which has experienced in the last two decades a sharp decrease in its population. Only about 10 remain, according to scientific estimates.
Its condition is so critical that it is considered the most threatened marine mammal on the planet. Their situation is largely due to the fact that they are trapped in the gillnets with which totoabas are illegally caught, a fish that is also critically endangered (Totoaba macdonaldi) because its swim bladders are sold in the Asian market at exorbitant prices for supposedly having medicinal properties.
In 2017, the Mexican government established a “zero tolerance” zone to protect the vaquita from illegal fishing, but now the government has implemented new protection measures that scientists and experts say condemn this marine mammal to extinction.

To understand what these measures consist of and what their implications are, Mongabay Latam spoke with biologist Alejandro Olivera, representative in Mexico of the Center for Biological Diversity, an organization dedicated to the protection of endangered species.
Read: ‘Home’ of the vaquita is declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in danger
With this new government provision, does the zero tolerance zone still exist or does it disappear?

It can no longer be called a zero tolerance zone because the new provisions are conditioning the government’s response to protect the vaquita, the number of illegal vessels present in the area or the number of nets in the water. In other words, the percentage of human and material resources that are made available for the protection of the vaquita will depend on the number of illegal vessels that are in the area.
Then fishing is still illegal in the area
Fishing is still banned, but what they are now doing is a tabulator to see how many resources they are going to use. If there are zero to 20 vessels, only 60 per cent of the available resources will be used. If there are more than 65 vessels then 100 percent of the resources will be used. But what should be is that at the minimum presence of a single illegal vessel, 100 percent of the available resources are used.
Also, depending on how many kilometers of networks they find, it’s going to be the percentage of resources they’re going to respond with. But that’s absurd. The Secretary of the Navy reported 142 nets so far this year measuring more or less 35 thousand meters, that is, 35 kilometers of nets. If there are that many nets in the water, 100 percent of the resources should be used.
That is why it is said that it is no longer zero tolerance zone.
What is the basis for setting the number of vessels at 65 in order to have 100 % of the resources?
We have no idea how that provision came out, it sounds pretty arbitrary. I just know that the person who proposed this was the director of the National Fisheries Institute, Pablo Arenas. He submitted it to the Regulatory Improvement Commission, his signature. It was approved and published.
It is also confusing and logistically impossible. If there are two officers from Profepa (The Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection), how much is 60 percent?
You may be interested: Federal government canceled support for fishermen; at risk the closure and rescue of the vaquita
What do you think was the reason for making this decision?
In September last year, provisions were made establishing the route to be followed to protect the vaquita. It looked very good because it banned the gillnets that are where these animals get entangled. But it was missing to describe the triggering factors, that is, how the vaquita was to be protected. They said they should be published in two months. They were not published in two months, until recently, on 9 July, and it turns out that the triggers are these types of actions.
What does the government say?
The Environment Secretary put out a statement trying to explain what the new regulations were about saying they were beneficial, that they’re going to be there 24/7. But what the Secretary of the Navy does is go out every other day, do a patrol, arrive at the zero tolerance zone and cordially invite illegal fishermen to leave the area.
There are no arrests, no nets confiscated, Profepa has been without boats for months, all last year it was without even an office, without vehicles, without gasoline to get out. Ahorita there is no gasoline in the port of San Felipe. So it’s not like they’re there all day either even though the decree says they’re going to use drones, boats, etc. The reality is that this is not the case.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of places where illegal fishermen go out: on the San Felipe pier, on the San Felipe boardwalk, from any beach you can launch a boat. Reality surpasses all regulations that have been implemented, and even more so these kinds of absurd regulations.
It should be noted that it is the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) that proposed the creation of this zero tolerance zone. Given the government’s inability to cover the entire vaquita shelter, which is a larger area, they said well, at least protect this small 12-by-24-kilometer polygon and make it a zero tolerance zone. I mean, if you can’t with this whole area, focus here.
How many boats can get to fish illegally in the area?
Sea Shepherd has identified more than 60 vessels fishing simultaneously in the zero tolerance zone.
Right now there is not so much activity because it is not totoaba or shrimp fishing season. But in September the next shrimp season begins, which also uses nets that affect the vaquita.
Is this new provision going to trigger illegal fishing or will it continue as it has been developed up to now?
The fishermen are already talking about the fact that if the tabulator says from 0 to 20 boats, then we are going to sign up for about 19 boats so that there is less vigilance. These provisions open up this type of possibility, to look at how to have less vigilance.
How many vaquitas are estimated to remain?
Around 10. Mother vaquitas have been seen with their young in good health, it is a positive thing because it means that the population continues to reproduce. Even so, whether it’s 10, 20 or 30 is a critical state and is the most endangered marine mammal on the planet.
What does the disappearance of the vaquita imply?
It would be an international shame if the Mexican government had let a species, and not just any species, but an endemic marine mammal that does not exist anywhere else on the planet, go extinct. Having had time to recover the species, it has only had policies of failure.
 
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Original source in Spanish

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