CITES Standing Committee vaquita marina Mexico action plan, Digi Mart USA News (Geneva): The CITES Standing Committee decided not to consider the nine outstanding goals of Mexico’s action plan for protecting the vaquita marina and combating illegal totoaba fishing as fulfilled. The Mexican delegation attended the committee’s 81st meeting in Geneva but did not secure closure of the procedure, which has been in place for more than three years.
Marina Robles, undersecretary for Biodiversity and Environmental Restoration at Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), asked CITES to accept nine of the 101 milestones in the Compliance Action Plan that Mexico committed to in April 13, 2023 as completed. She cited a new version of the Regulatory Agreement for the Upper Gulf of California, published October 14, which reduces by 86% the prohibition zone for gillnets in the vaquita marina habitat.
Robles also pointed to the implementation of fishing gear marking and satellite vessel monitoring, which she said are not yet in operation, as well as a transition to alternative fishing methods. She noted that Mexico has also prosecuted cases, with prison sentences and fines exceeding 130 million Mexican pesos, including a four-year prison term and a 19 million peso fine handed down two weeks earlier.
CITES acknowledged Mexico’s progress and softened its draft recommendations by removing a direct instruction to adopt additional compliance measures at its next meeting. However, members did not accept the nine pending milestones as complete.
They instructed Mexican authorities to submit a new progress update 90 days before the 2027 meeting.
The United States said Mexico arrived without meeting all goals set since 2023, even though the CITES deadline expired at this meeting, and asked for full and immediate application of the Compliance Action Plan and the new Regulatory Agreement, including effective enforcement of the gillnet ban across the new designated zone. The United Kingdom supported keeping the nine goals under review and rejected Mexico’s proposal to submit a final report, asking Mexico to continue reporting on implementation and its effects.
Environmental organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Animal Welfare Institute, asked CITES to suspend trade with Mexico or at least keep the compliance process open under Article XIII. They argued that several pending milestones involve concrete law enforcement and anti-organized crime measures, and that the reduced zone complicates monitoring.
Alejandro Olivera, Mexico representative of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the government had received several extensions and must deliver actual results rather than another progress report. He also questioned the functioning of smaller-vessel monitoring devices, whose first installations did not work and whose replacement remains in process.
