North American Environmental Commission Confirms Mexico’s Role in Imperiling Vaquita

Montreal—A commission under the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) released a report yesterday confirming that Mexico’s unwillingness to enforce its own wildlife protection, trade, and fisheries laws is driving the extinction of the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

In its prepared “factual record,” the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which investigates nations’ environmental enforcement under the USMCA, details how illegal gillnet fishing and totoaba trafficking continue unabated in the porpoise’s Upper Gulf of California refuge.

“This report confirms a heartbreaking reality. Illegal gillnet fishing is squeezing the last breaths out of the poor vaquita,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Mexico needs to shut down all gillnet fishing immediately and start round the clock enforcement throughout the vaquita’s habitat to give these little porpoises even a sliver of hope.”

The CEC Secretariat’s factual record found that Mexico’s claims that it is taking enforcement actions are undermined or not supported by on-the-ground observations. For example, despite Mexico’s ban on certain fishing gear since 2020, interviews and eyewitness accounts confirmed that “fishing activities continue at the similar levels and with the same [gear] as before the restrictions,” the report said.

The Secretariat also found that fishermen “elude” fishing bans in the vaquita habitat by sending their illegal catch to processors in other regions. Mexico has failed to provide sufficient information, the report said, leaving central enforcement questions unanswered.

Fewer than 10 vaquita remain, according to a 2024 survey. Earlier this summer, hydroacoustic devices used in the porpoise’s habitat recorded 41 acoustic encounters with vaquita, proving that the species continues to survive in its core habitat, called the “zero tolerance area,” as well as in the larger vaquita refuge. While efforts to prevent illegal fishing in the zero tolerance area have been successful in recent years, gillnet fishing remains rampant outside the area.

The use of illegal gillnets to catch shrimp and totoaba has caused the vaquita’s decline. Totoaba are large fish whose swim bladder, or maw, is in high demand in Asia due to its purported medicinal value.

“The commission’s report documents how insatiable demand for totoaba maw incentivizes the illegal take of this endangered species,” said DJ Schubert, senior wildlife biologist at the Animal Welfare Institute. “Transnational criminal networks engaged in the trafficking of totoaba parts won’t stop until Mexico and its trade partners step up enforcement and prosecute the kingpins.”

Under a Compliance Action Plan imposed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Mexico was required, among other tasks, to strengthen and expand inspections of vessels entering the Upper Gulf, install monitoring systems on all vessels using the area, and develop alternative gear to replace gillnets. Little progress has been made, however, despite a CITES directive that all changes be implemented by 2023. As of June, for example, Mexican officials had fitted only 10 of the 850 promised satellite trackers to monitor small boats, or pangas, fishing in the Upper Gulf.

In 2021, the Animal Welfare Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Investigation Agency petitioned the USMCA commission to investigate Mexico’s failure to enforce its fishing and trade laws; the CEC Secretariat called for the development of a factual record in 2022. Yet political wrangling among Mexico, the United States and Canada delayed the report’s completion for three years.

“This report makes painfully clear what we’ve known for years—Mexico’s failure to enforce its own laws is driving the world’s rarest marine mammal to extinction,” said Michael Jasny, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Marine Mammal Protection Project. “There’s no time left for half measures. The US must use every tool under the USMCA to hold Mexico accountable and stop the illegal fishing that’s pushing the vaquita over the edge.”

“Stronger actions through the USMCA remain our last chance at giving the near-extinct vaquita any glimmer of hope at survival,” added CT Harry, senior ocean policy analyst for the Environmental Investigation Agency. “With the Mexican government’s continued failure to prevent illegal gillnet operations, time is running out before these unique animals take their final breaths.”

Now that the report is public, the United States, through its Office of the US Trade Representative, can use the information to further press Mexico to combat illegal fishing in ongoing USMCA consultations. If those negotiations stall, the office can escalate to a dispute panel, which can authorize import penalties until Mexico fully enforces the gillnet ban in vaquita habitat.