MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – An international wildlife convention on Monday recommended that all commercial trade of species on its protected list with Mexico should be suspended, saying the country failed to deliver an appropriate plan to protect its native totoaba fish.
In the Gulf of California, illegal fishing of endangered totoaba – a fish whose bladder is highly valued in Asian markets for its use in traditional medicine – has brought the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise, to the brink of extinction.
Mexico had in late February presented a plan to protect the fish, but a notification on Monday from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) said it found this plan inadequate.
The statement said Mexico’s plan did not sufficiently take into account its advice and issued “the recommendation to suspend all commercial trade in specimens of CITES-listed species with Mexico.”
CITES did not give more detail on the commercial trade that should be banned.
CITES lists over 40,900 species of plants and animals as protected wildlife at risk of being over-exploited by international trade, including some 6,600 animal species.
On Saturday, a day after receiving an early release of CITES’ recommendations, Mexico’s government defended its plan and said it would send a delegation to Geneva on Monday to meet with CITES and review its recommendations.
“Though the government considers our country is being treated unfairly by not taking into account the exhaustive efforts and many actions that have been carried out,” it said, “it is willing to discuss the observations and resolve them in a satisfactory manner.”
In November, a report by U.S. environmental group Center for Biological Diversity signaled a significant increase in wildlife trafficking in Mexico, blaming toothless regulation for harming wildlife in one of the world’s most biodiverse nations.
(Reporting by Adriana Barrera and Carolina Pulice; Editing by Sarah Morland and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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