Porpoise's fate hinges on enforcement

By Ignacio Ibarra
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
 

Mexico must find new resolve to enforce remaining environmental rules in a Gulf of California preserve, now that it has allowed shrimp trawling there, Sonoran Desert conservationists say.

Also, the local fishermen must be convinced that there is a long-term benefit to them in protecting the Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Preserve, because that will result in better fishing conditions outside the preserve, experts say.

More than 130 commercial shrimp trawlers won the right in October to continue operating in the northern Gulf of California after blocking roads in a protest and temporarily trapping Arizona tourists in the beach town of Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point.

That may have saved the region's fishing and tourism industry for this season, but its effect on the ecological health of one of the world's most endangered fisheries is a concern to environmentalists. The reserve is home to an endangered porpoise, the marine vaquita.

The Mexican government failed to enforce restrictions within its federal reserve for years, said Richard C. Brusca, director of conservation and science at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. He is the author of several books and papers on biodiversity in the Gulf of California.

Brusca rejected the argument that the fishing industry had been caught unprepared.

He said the shrimp trawlers knew they were supposed to be out of the reserve within six years of the 1993 declaration, "but the Pesca (Fisheries) Department failed to uphold that law, and now we're in a mess."

"The fact is the bottom has been so trashed for so many decades, that even if they did cut back trawling it probably still would not allow for recovery of that ecosystem," he said. "The only way that ecosystem will recover now is if you just leave it alone for about two decades."

Peggy Turk-Boyer, director of the Puerto Peñasco-based Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans, agrees that the federal government's enforcement record has not been good, but she is optimistic about the compromise reached with shrimpers.

The compromise came after protests over emergency regulations announced at the start of this year's shrimp season.

Those regulations prohibited the use of drag nets in the biosphere reserve, a traditional fishing ground for the Puerto Peñasco fleet. They also imposed new restrictions on the incidental destruction of non-commercial fish by the shrimp fishermen - which can be 10 to 30 times the shrimp catch.

"We're still several steps ahead of where we were six months ago," Turk-Boyer said.

The boats that will be permitted will be allowed to work in the reserve for only three months, half the usual six-month season. The fleet will also be banned from employing some of the most destructive techniques, including the use of espantadores, or drag chains, that rake the gulf's floor, scaring the shrimp up into nets.

"The amount of time they're in there is reduced, the number of boats is reduced, and the boats that are in there will have to use turtle excluders and fish excluders," Turk-Boyer said.

Less than a third of the 450-boat fleet operating in the Gulf of California has been authorized to operate in the protected zone.

The boats will operate no closer than three miles from the coast and must use nets designed to release sea turtles, dolphins and fish species caught.

The communities that rely on the gulf for their livelihoods must be convinced that there is a value to them in protecting the upper gulf, which serves as a marine nursery for the entire region, said Karl Flessa, a University of Arizona geoscience professor.

Marine reserves can have a positive effect on fish catches outside the reserve, Flessa said.