FOX ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES FACE TEST IN BAJA CALIFORNIA & SONORA CASES.

The shores of Baja California and Sonora have become the testing ground for President Vicente Fox's commitment to protect the environment, especially the region's marine life. In recent weeks, the administration has faced two separate controversies involving regulations on shark fishing and

The controversy regarding the shark-fishing regulations created a temporary split among members of Fox's Cabinet. The issue came to the forefront after a host of environmental organizations and some elected officials denounced efforts by Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga Arroyo to quietly implement a new policy that would have allowed commercial shark fishing inside an area previously off limits to such activity.

The new policy was published in the federal register (Diario Oficial de la Federacion) on July 12 and was to become effective on Sept. 12 but was suspended because of strong opposition.

In the published decree, the Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentacion (SAGARPA) said the new guidelines were beneficial for Mexico because the government would now be able to dictate policies on shark fishing, which was previously unregulated.

Administration rescinds shark-fishing policy

The publication of the shark-fishing policy drew an outcry from the environmental community and from elected officials like Baja California Sur Gov. Leonel Cota Montano and Sen. Veronica Velasco of the Partido Verde Ecologista Mexicano (PVEM). Also joining the opposition were Environment Secretary Victor Lichtinger and Tourism Secretary Leticia Navarro Ochoa.

Critics said the new guidelines were too lenient and failed to consider the impact on other marine life in the area. They said equipment used by the shark-fishing industry, which consists of wide gill nets and long fishing lines, threatened many other marine species that live just offshore, including dolphins, sea turtles, and several species of game fish like marlin and sailfish.

Usabiaga was criticized for attempting to enact the decree without much public discussion, leading to charges that the plan was promoted by the commercial shark-fishing industry. "What private interests seek to benefit from this action?" Sen. Velasco asked Usabiaga during the agriculture secretary's recent testimony before Congress.

Lichtinger also indirectly criticized Usabiaga for a lack of accountability. "Mexico has changed radically," Lichtinger said in a Los Angeles Times interview. "You cannot do things like before, without the people really participating."

At Velasco's urging, the Mexican Senate approved a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to rework the shark-fishing regulations to ensure greater protection for marine species.

Several environmental organizations expressed their opposition to the new guidelines by taking out full-page advertisements in Mexican newspapers and flooding Fox's office with e-mail messages. The protestors threatened to disrupt a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur state, on Oct. 26-27.

The pressure led SAGARPA to suspend the decree in mid- October. Administration officials promised to work on new guidelines acceptable to environmental groups, Congress, and the commercial-fishing industry.

"Greenpeace Mexico considers this cancellation a great victory for environmental organizations, especially those who work in the northwest," the organization said in a communique.

Other groups urged the government to enforce Mexico's environmental laws even though the decree governing shark fishing has been suspended temporarily. "The next step is to control the illegal fishing that still exists in the area," said Guillermo Alvarez, president of the Mexican Billfish Foundation.

Government cracks down on shrimpers in protected area

The Fox administration, in the meantime, has taken a hard line against illegal fishing in the protected Alto Golfo Biosphere Reserve in the upper Gulf of California. The 400,000-hectare reserve was declared a national park and UN biosphere reserve almost 10 years ago. Until now, government efforts to protect marine life has been spotty at best.

With the aid of the Mexican Navy, the government has begun to enforce a new law, NOM-029-PESC-2000, which blocks shrimp fleets from fishing in the reserve. The law attempts to protect the endangered vaquita harbor porpoise and other species that make their home in the reserve.

Environmental groups applaud the crackdown because the gill nets used by the local shrimp fleets kill an estimated 30 to 80 vaquitas a year. "Trawling the ocean floor has just completely destroyed this ecosystem," said Peggy Turk, director of the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans in Puerto Penasco, Sonora state.

The crackdown has put the government in conflict with residents of communities along the shores of the reserve, who have made a living from catching shrimp in the area. "They can't come in here and take away the work we've been doing for 50, 60, 70 years from one day to the next," Alberto Rocha, a shrimper from Puerto Penasco, told the Associated Press. Rocha owns two shrimp vessels that depend on the reserve.

To express their discontent, shrimpers staged a protest in late October by blocking traffic on a highway leading to Puerto Penasco. Protestors warned that they would resort to "more drastic measures," if the government did not reverse the new law.

The shrimpers have received support from some legislators in the Mexican Congress. "The Sonora fishing industry is facing one of its worst crises in history because of the application of this new law," said federal Deputy Alfredo Lopez Aceves of the former governing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

The national fishing industry, represented by the Camara Nacional de la Industria Pesquera (CANAIPESCA), has also come out in support of the Sonora shrimpers, who could lose about 30 million pesos (US$3.07 million) this season. CANAIPESCA officials said they are working with SAGARPA and the Secretaria del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT) to establish guidelines that would allow shrimpers access to shrimp stocks in the reserve. [Note: Peso-dollar conversions in this article are based on the Interbank rate in effect on Oct. 23, reported at 9.76 pesos per US$1.00] (Sources: Notimex, 10/10/02; Los Angeles Times, 10/15/02; Reforma, 10/16/02; Associated Press, 10/12/02, 10/20/02, 10/22/02; La Jornada, 10/22/02; Novedades, 10/23/02)