Post by account_disabled on Mar 12, 2024 2:32:18 GMT -6
The vaquita porpoise should be 100% protected, however, it is not. In the following weeks, the vessels will resume activities because the federal government suspended the economic support that has been granted to them since 2015 in exchange for maintaining the ban.
According to the fishermen in the France Mobile Number List areas of the communities of San Felipe and Santa Clara, since December, when the new government began, they no longer received the resources for stopping fishing, so now they say they feel forced to resume activities.
According to Animal Político, Alonso García, secretary of the Federation of Riverside Fishermen of the Port of San Felipe, said in an interview that "we do not have any fishing method authorized, so what we intend is to work with what is in season, which is a species that It is called milkfish, a fish that has an important commercial value for the Asian market.
“At the end of the day we would be doing illegal things, unfortunately, we would be as illegal as the totoaberos are.”
And a few months ago, the current government said that it would start the Integran program for fishing sustainability in the Upper Gulf of California, with the aim of improving the protection of biodiversity and raising the living conditions of coastal communities in the region. ”.
They are responsible for not conserving the vaquita: Greenpeace
He also said that they seek to strengthen “sustainable fishing practices,” as well as surveillance and protection schemes for the vaquita porpoise and to combat poaching and illegal trafficking of the totoaba.
However, this program, which is aimed at fishermen, does not have resources contemplated by the Federation Expenditure Budget for 2019.
For its part, the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), acknowledged, in documents delivered following a request for information, that it does not have resources for compensation to fishermen or for protection actions for the vaquita porpoise.
The fishermen also complain because their activity has been criminalized, however they argue that the death of the vaquita porpoise is not caused by their work, but by illegal fishing that seeks the totoaba.
In an interview with Animal Político , Alonso García said that several fishermen have dabbled in poaching to survive. However, he pointed out that illegal fishing for totoaba requires investment and equipment that no vessel in the area has.
"The gillnet is a model of fishing gear, but there are different characteristics. If I want to fish for shrimp, I use a gillnet with a mesh diameter of two, three-quarters of an inch and a thread thickness of 0.30 millimeters, but if "I want to fish tototaba, I use a 12-inch net, which has a much larger square where the animals are caught,"
“The problem is that nets are prohibited, we do not have any other fishing gear, nor do we have or know how to use any other… what we are going to do is stop detaining people.”
It is said that one of the consequences of the vaquita being in danger of extinction is due to the use of gillnets, which directly affect the species. It is for this reason that the use of these nets in fishing was prohibited a couple of years ago.
It should be noted that the similar size between the totoaba and the vaquita porpoise is similar, which means that gillnets invariably trap vaquitas that are in danger of extinction.
What is the role that the government is taking? Isn't it notorious that the vaquita porpoise, a species endemic to our country, is dying due to illegal fishing? What more needs to happen to make the government aware that not all the decisions it is making are correct.