gringorio
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American appetites endanger sea's fish --> Article
from: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=0...
American appetites endanger sea's fish
But if illegal fishing methods are curbed, what would Mexican fishermen do for a living?
LUKE TURF
Tucson Citizen
MAZATLAN, Sinaloa - Seafood caught in Mexico with fishing techniques that are restricted or illegal in the United States still ends up on our dinner
plates.
Tens of thousands of fishermen living along the shores of the Sea of Cortez depend on it for a living.
Loosely enforced laws allow overfishing of both quantity and species in an unsustainable fashion that's dealing a devastating blow to an underwater
population, according to scientists.
For generations, fishermen have been taking fish faster than Mother Nature can replenish them, said Carlos Villavicencio, a biologist who specializes
in sharks at the Autonomous University of Baja California South in La Paz.
At the heart of the fishing controversy is a regulation called the shark norma. The Mexican regulation allows fishermen who say they're fishing for
shark to fish within 50 miles of the fragile coastal zone with gill nets and longlines laced with hundreds of hooks.
Gill nets have been banned or are tightly regulated in the United States, and longlines recently were banned in California. Longlines and gill nets
set for shark also catch swordfish, dorado, dolphins, turtles, sea lions and seabirds.
According to the law, fishermen may keep anything they catch on those longlines or in the nets, except for protected species such as turtles. But a
lack of enforcement makes it easy for fishermen to keep the turtles, said Mario Cordoba, a Mexican fisherman in Guaymas.
Some of the incidental catch is more valuable than sharks, which are becoming more difficult to find, said Villavicencio, who estimates the number of
sharks in the sea is at the lowest level ever because so many have been hooked for their meat or fins.
Fishermen use the shark permits to catch such species as dorado, which are not supposed to be fished commercially, Villavicencio said.
About 9 million pounds of swordfish were shipped to the United States between 1999 and 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dorado,
also known as mahi-mahi, is not supposed to be commercially fished, but it's allowed as incidental catch with the shark permit. More than 14,330
pounds of mahi-mahi have been imported from Mexico so far this year, according to the National Marine Fisheries' Web site.
Because determining where fish come from is no easy task, there's little the American consumer can do to encourage or support more sustainable
practices in the sea, also known as the Gulf of California. Federal regulations going into effect later this year will require that the country of
origin be printed on packaged fish in the United States.
Fish caught in Mexico with techniques banned in the United States, such as unregulated gill nets, are prohibited from import under the Marine Mammal
Protection Act, said Brendan Cummings, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.
But those fish still end up on U.S. dinner plates. Villavicencio said most swordfish caught in Mexico is shipped into the United States.
"As U.S. fisheries improve their technologies, other countries are supposed to follow suit. If not, we are supposed to ban their imports," Cummings
said.
"Unless Mexico bans gill netting for swordfish or implements protective measures comparable to those used in California, we believe the law requires
the banning of the importation of Mexican swordfish."
Though Mexico's laws governing the fishing industry may be more lax than those in the United States, the real problem, law enforcement officials say,
is that they don't have enough resources to enforce the laws on the books.
Permit 'scam'
The government-issued shark permits are a "scam," Villavicencio said.
Villavicencio estimated the shark population at just 10 percent of what it was 50 years ago.
He and Tucsonan John Brakey said the permits allow fishermen into fragile coastal zones, where they nab marlin, dorados, turtle and other species as
"incidental by-catch" while supposedly fishing for shark.
Brakey is executive director of Amigos del Mar de Cortes/Friends of the Sea of Cortez, a binational, nonprofit organization of fishermen, business
owners and scientists.
The 50-year-old Tucsonan is a self-described "assassin of the ocean" who made a living selling boat motors to the fishermen he's now trying to stop.
"I was part of the problem," Brakey said. "I thought the sea was endless."
Most of the 2,000 motors Brakey sold in the 1990s propelled boats using the same fishing techniques - gill nets and longlines - Brakey now fights.
In 2003, Brakey closed his three seashore motor shops and made the Amigos del Mar his priority. He said he wants to preserve the sea for his
grandchildren.
Marlin and swordfish caught by supposed shark fishermen are exported to the United States. Dorado, reserved by law in Mexico for sport fishing only,
are known in restaurants on both sides of the border as mahi-mahi and also are imported into the United States.
To illustrate his point that few sharks - but plenty of other fish - are caught by shark fishermen, Brakey headed to a Mazatlan fish market. He found
no shark, but every booth had mahi-mahi.
Brakey and Villavicencio say the shark permits also keep the illegal turtle market thriving because the turtles are nabbed on longlines or in nets.
They usually end up in soup, they said.
Enforcement
Turtles may be illegal to keep, but fisherman Mario Cordoba said he's unlikely to get caught because he has seen authorities on the water just once in
the past year.
Captain Jesus Bonilla can't enforce the law adequately with the available resources, he said. Bonilla is the inspections coordinator in the state of
Sinaloa for CONAPESCA, Mexico's fishing regulatory agency.
He simply can't keep up with thousands of fishermen when he has just four 200-horsepower boats.
"For sufficient investigations we don't have the resources," Bonilla said.
Although the Mexican navy lends a hand with inspections, Bonilla needs more, bigger and faster boats to do the job right, he said.
But Mexican fishermen such as Felicardo Felix and Americans such as Brakey said the regulatory agency is prone to corruption.
"Here in Mexico, with money, you can make the dog dance," Felix said.
Brakey and the Amigos del Mar want to help law enforcement. Some of them have volunteered their boats for missions.
Cash flow
Brakey's Amigos del Mar have a plan that he said can bring millions of dollars to the sea for law enforcement.
He suggested the Mexican government sell fishing permits online and keep the money in a trust to be distributed to law enforcement in the states
surrounding the sea, rather than sending the money to the Mexican federal government, as is current practice.
Raul Villase?or is a regulations director in Sinaloa for CONAPESCA. He said the $60 to $650 fee per permit goes straight to the federal government,
and he's not sure how much of it comes back to his agency.
A shake-up in the beginning of 2001 by the Mexican government makes law enforcement on the sea even more difficult for endangered species protection,
both Amigos del Mar and government officials agreed.
Mexico's fishing regulatory agency and its endangered species protection agency, PROFEPA, once were both under the environmental secretary's umbrella.
But the two were recently split up, dealing a blow to endangered species protection, said Angel Gonzalez, an engineer for the department now
overseeing the endangered species protection agency.
"How can we protect the future of fish without the investigators and the protection (regulators) together?" Gonzalez said.
Brakey hopes his attempts to unsnarl the red tape will have a long-lasting impact.
The Amigos del Mar hope to spur enough change in fishing regulations to preserve fish for future generations of commercial fishermen, tourists and
sport fishermen.
"My job at the Amigos is to bring people together," Brakey said.
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