The explorer Jacques Cousteau said that the Sea of Cortez, in northwestern Mexico, is “the world’s aquarium.”
One of its treasures is the vaquita marina , a silver porpoise with big panda eyes. But their can be counted by the illegal fishing of another protected species: the totoaba .
It is a fish that can grow as large as a vaquita porpoise and that it was a food before being included in the list of threatened species in Mexico.
“We fished it over the years 60 Y 70 ”, recalls Ramón Franco Díaz, president of a federation of fishermen in the coastal town of San Felipe , in the peninsula of Baja California .
“Then the Chinese came with their suitcases full of dollars and they bought our consciences “.
Asians They arrived looking for the swim bladder of the totoaba , an organ that helps fish to stay buoyant. In China it is very valuable for its alleged medicinal properties, which are not proven .
According to the NGO Earth League International, dry swim bladders from 10 years can be sold for US $ 85. 000 the kilo in China . The fishermen of San Felipe earn only a small fraction, but being a poor community, the business has flourished due to the so-called “cocaine from the sea” .
“Illegal fishermen can be seen in broad daylight with their illegal nets and totoaba,” says Franco Díaz.
Drop a “wall under water”
Every afternoon during the season, the trucks that tow fishing boats go down a ramp on the city’s public beach and drop them in the water.
Most of these boats do not have license and its fishermen use n nets that can kill the vaquita marina .
“Gillnets can be hundreds of meters long and 10 meters high “, says Valeria Towns, who works with a Mexican NGO, the Museo de la Ballena.
“They become a wall under water “, he affirms.
To protect the vaquita, this type of gillnet is prohibited in the upper part of the Gulf. However, they are widely used, even by fishermen with permits to fish for turbot or shrimp.
The most dangerous for the vaquita are the large mesh nets used for totoaba. “It is not easy for marine mammals to get rid of them, the vaquita is trapped,” says Towns.
Off the coast of San Felipe, it is assumed that all commercial fishing is prohibited within the Refuge for the Protection of the Vaquita Marina, an area of more than 1. 800 square kilometers. Inside the refuge there is a smaller zone of “zero tolerance” .
The Whale Museum supports a handful of fishermen interested in finishing with dependence on gillnets and sponsors alternatives to fishing such as oyster farming.
It is also one of the NGOs that removes gillnets from the protected area . This is an activity that has increased tensions between locals and conservationists.
The 31 from December to 2020, one fisherman was killed and another seriously injured after his fishing boat collided with a larger boat belonging to the international NGO Sea Shepherd that was removing gillnets.
The facts are controversial, but the result was a riot in San Felipe , where the Whale Museum ship docks.
“They were going to burn our ship,” says Towns, who was in the sea at the time, proband or nets suitable for vaquitas.
“When I returned, other fishermen who work with alternative nets were defending our boat, telling them: ‘This is not your enemy! Don’t burn this ship. ‘”
The ship was saved, although it had some broken windows. The Mexican Navy was not so lucky, as one of its patrol boats was set on fire in the port.
Now there is an uncomfortable truce .
The Navy says it continues to patrol and remove the nets from the sanctuary. But there are few NGOs involved: the Whale Museum is waiting for a permit to resume work and the Sea Shepherd ship never returned to San Felipe after the incident.
“Crazy people with weapons”
Impunity and the absence of security forces can explain why what dozens of boats leave the beach of San Felipe in search of totoaba in the sanctuary.
“Not a single authority stops them,” complains Ramón Franco Díaz. “ If you dare to approach them, they would shoot you. Organized crime has stolen the Sea of Cortez.”
A man who used to fish for totoaba says: “Now you see many crazy people with weapons.”
The violent events of the 31 made international news and put San Felipe in the spotlight.
Now the Mexican government is considering proposals that fishermen might like, but will enrage conservationists concerned about the precarious fate of the vaquita marina.
One is raise the status endangered species of the totoaba. Another is to legalize the other fishing that is already carried out in the sanctuary.
“We want to establish different fishing zones, for example, for corvina and shrimp,” says Iván Rico López, of the government working group that explores sustainability in the upper part del Golfo.
“The sanctuary is huge. If the ban on fishing there is maintained, the fishermen simply would not eat. So we have to move towards the legalization of fishing. ”
The Mexican government has also distributed 3. 000 “suriperas”, secure networks for sea cows. But fishermen complain that they reduce their catches by 80%.
“We have to look for ways to increase that, ”says Rico López. “We are looking for alternatives, but we have to convince the communities: if they are not involved in decision-making, we will not succeed.”
Is it possible to protect this precious mammal and guarantee that the locals keep living?
In San Felipe, the illicit totoaba trade, the threatening participation of organized crime and the little economic diversity create a toxic mix.
There is also an ingrained culture of traditional fishing.
Valeria Towns has a warning for San Felipe fishing families who ignore the call to make changes to save the vaquita: “I don’t think anyone is going to buy products from an area where people caused the extinction of a species ”.
After the totoaba season, would you bet that the vaquita will survive until next year?
“Of course! There’s always hope. If not, I wouldn’t be here, ”he says without hesitation.
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