English | Español

Enforcement On Imports To Save 650,000 Dolphins

by Atuna.com
January 30, 2015

Enforcement On Imports To Save 650,000 Dolphins

This article originally appeared on atuna.com. It is reprinted here with their permission. Click here to read the original piece.

The motivation of a dolphin activist-fueled court case has no timing link to the Mexican tuna fishery entering MSC assessment, and will have zero impact on the bid. This is according to Mark Robertson from the Campaign for Eco-Safe Tuna, who states the real motivation behind the litigation is that the NRDC wants to expose the issue of more than 650,000 marine mammals being killed or seriously injured every year in all foreign fisheries, without specifically referring to tuna fisheries.

“As scientists and responsible NGOs look back on three decades of failed attempts to protect dolphins through U.S. legislation and other mechanisms, the multilateral Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program (AIDCP) - which covers tuna caught in the ETP - has been the only effective and verifiable response and the only program that has been proven to protect both dolphins and the ecosystem. Fish caught under the AIDCP - like those of the Mexican fishery - meet and exceed US legislative standards for marine protection,” he told atuna.com.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published a report called ‘Net Loss: The Killing of Marine Mammals in Foreign Fisheries’ in January 2014, and pointed out that the MMPA (Marine Mammal Protection Act) had been collecting dust for more than 40 years; never enforced by the US federal government in fisheries other than the Eastern Tropical Pacific tuna fishery.

On Monday, atuna.com reported that the NRDC-filed case had met a new milestone as the U.S. government agreed to settle, and finally implement the long-delayed 1972 regulation in full. This will require foreign fisheries to meet the same marine mammal protection standards required of U.S. fishermen, or be denied import privileges.

The settlement deadline calls for a proposed rule to be issued by June 1st2015, and a final rule to be issued by August 1st 2016. Atuna.com reported that it was likely that the activists would be keen to get the US government to implement the regulations before Mexican tuna fisheries potentially gain MSC certification for dolphin associated tuna catch.

However, according to Robertson, the NRDC case “has zero to do with the ETP tuna fishery.” He explained that “the case is focused on the failure of the U.S. to enforce the MMPA with regard to products from fisheries outside of the ETP tuna fishery.” He states that the ETP region is already covered by the AIDCP and tracking and verification controls are fully implemented for that fishery within the US regulations. This makes it fully compliant with the MMPA regulations. He states that all tuna from the ETP, caught by countries in full compliance with the AIDCP, like that of Mexico’s fleet, meets and exceeds US standards under the MMPA.

Robertson explains that “paragraph 42 of the original lawsuit said very specifically that the U.S. government has promulgated regulation to deal with issues associated with the ETP tuna fishery, but has not implemented the mandate for ‘reasonable proof’ of no harm to marine mammals outside of that fishery… so the ETP was never an issue in this litigation. Importantly, the settlement of this case has no relevance to the ETP fishery and no future negative impact on the possible MSC certification of that fishery.”

Instead, he states that the settlement route was likely opted for as the US government knew it was going to lose the case, and wanted more time to publish a regulation proposal to the courts. Our source continued: “This settlement is a further acknowledgement by the U.S. government of the lack of traceability of tuna entering the U.S. market and a complete lack of verifiability of its self-proclaimed status on dolphin safe, which is the focus of the claims Mexico has brought before the WTO and has repeatedly won on.”