Investigation opened against Mexico for decline in vaquita population

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CCA), a body created under the T-MECapproved resolution SEM-21-002, with which it instructs its Secretariat to carry out a Fact File (in-depth investigation) on alleged omissions in the application of environmental legislation in our country, which put the company at risk of extinction. sea ​​cow

The petition to the CEC to open the Fact File It was carried out since August 11, 2021, by the Center for Biological Diversity; the Animal Welfare Institute; the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The organizations of the civil society based in the USargued flaws in the General Wildlife Law and its Regulationsas well as the agreement that prohibits the use of all gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California and the ban imposed since 1975 on the capture of Totoaba fish, in whose nets the vaquita porpoise drowns.

The Mexican government is failing to effectively enforce several of its environmental provisions, an inaction that has resulted in the near extinction of the vaquita marina,” they said.

After much deliberation, the CCA Council, made up of representatives of the governments of Mexico, USA and Canada, voted unanimously for the resolution to instruct the Secretariat to prepare a Factual Record on the vaquita marina, based on Articles 24.27 and 24.28 of the USMCA.

He also asked the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation to draw up a general work plan to collect relevant facts.

In this way, the CCA Secretariat has four months to prepare the Record of Facts, with technical and scientific information.

and legal that addresses Mexico’s compliance efforts to protect and conserve the world’s most endangered marine mammal.

Although the result is not binding, some of the member countries of the Trade Treaty could use this investigation as a basis to eventually apply an embargo or economic sanction.

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After the resolution was made public, Alejandro Oliverarepresentative in Mexico of the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that our country has to take responsibility for its omissions before the international community and promote urgent actions to save the vaquita.

“The vaquita continues to fight against illegal and deadly gillnets in its habitat, and Mexico has been looking the other way for years as the species heads toward extinction. Now with the environmental chapter of the USMCA, Mexico must act or else face the consequences,” he said.

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