Something for the Baja Mexico fans, and a reminder of how the BLM could resolve issues in a compromise fashion (rather than always on the ESA side of the issue).

BTW, the US has banned all ocean fishing deeper than 120 feet in our coastal waters, and are demanding Marine Preserves as well (the Wildlands Project extends to the "wildseas" as well: no fishing now, no surfing and no sailing in the future).

Happy Trails!

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http://cbs2.com/news/AP/APTV/National/a/i/Mexico-WorldsAquariu-ai/news_html

Mexico resolves dispute with fishermen over
marine reserve

Wednesday October 23, 2002

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer

EL GOLFO DE SANTA CLARA, Mexico (AP) Government officials
reached an agreement with fishermen Wednesday in a dispute that
has spilled over into Mexico's tourism industry and threatened to
become a headache for President Vicente Fox as he hosts world
leaders.

But environmentalists criticized the compromise which will allow
shrimping vessels to continue fishing in a national protected marine
reserve as a blow to last-ditch efforts to save what Jacques
Cousteau once called ``the world's aquarium.''

The agreement came after protests by fishermen stranded hundreds
of U.S. tourists over the weekend and just as leaders from Pacific
Rim nations gathered further south in the resort of Cabo San Lucas.

After Fox sent in the Mexican navy to oust shrimp vessels from the
northernmost section of the Gulf of California, fishermen formed
human chains across a highway connecting the sleepy Mexican port
of Puerto Penasco to the U.S. border. The port, known as Rocky
Point in the United States, is a popular weekend getaway for Arizona
residents.

Fishermen met with Arizona officials Wednesday to assure them they
would not interfere with tourism.

Declared a national park and U.N. biosphere nearly a decade ago, the
million-acre reserve cuts a glistening blue swath through one of
North America's driest deserts, separating Baja California from
mainland Mexico.

The waters are a key breeding ground for the Gulf of California, also
known as the sea of Cortez. The area is also home of the vaquita,
the world's smallest porpoise on the brink of extinction.

With less than 600 of the four-foot vaquitas remaining, Mexico's
Environment Secretary, Victor Lichtinger had called the crackdown
``our last chance to save this species.''

Environmentalists say the boats use huge trawler nets that scrape
the bottom of the Gulf and clean of marine life, dredging up dozens
of species on which vaquitas depend. The fisherman keep a few
commercially valuable species and throw the rest away to die,
environmental groups allege.

Gill nets used by about 1,000 small-scale fishermen who are still
allowed in the reserve also have killed between 30 to 80 vaquitas a
year, environmentalists say.

``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, which sits just
outside the reserve.

But Lichtinger's spokesman, Rodolfo Lacy, acknowledged Wednesday
that local fishermen who have been working in the area long before
the reserve was formed in 1993 also have a right to ``exploit its
resources.''

Lacy said there are ways they can do that while protecting the
reserve.

Under the seven-point compromise, 130 local boats will be allowed to
use a limited zone that avoids the main vaquita areas. Some 400
boats from Gulf ports outside the area that once fished the reserve
will be banned.

Fishermen now must use specially inspected low-impact nets to
curtail damage to the ocean floor and prevent the capture of young
fish and turtles.

They also cannot fish closer than three miles from the coast and will
be required to submit an environmental impact study this week.
Boats are expected to back in the reserve by Saturday. Shrimp
season runs from October to December.

``Before boats would come and go as they please,'' Lacy said. ``But
the federal government now is ensuring that all protected areas are
actually being protected. This is no exception.''

Salvador Cabrales, president of the Fishing Industry Association, said
the fishermen plan on ``using better technologies and better
materials to give the environment a better opportunity.''

Environmentalists, however, said there still would be harm.

``Our opinion is that they should respect all of the reserve, which
will benefit fishermen in the future,'' said Olegario Morales of the
Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans.

``Definitely, there will be an impact,'' he added. ``As much as they
want to diminish the activity, the impact is going to be real.''

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

This past April I spent a week with my wife on our first anniversary in Puertecitos (south of San Felipe) and in Guadalupe Canyon. The local fishermen normally cease operations by the end of March, but the fishermen I saw in Puertecitos were aiding drug runners coming across the gulf late at night.

As we slept in our tent, three separate skiffs would speed in, and immediately, they would zoom off once they gassed up. Headlights would shine on our tent, and we'd wake up. The man tending the property next door to this operation said that these fishermen just kept fishing all spring as part of a "Front" to their activities. What they were doing was overfishing the area.

Driving north to Isla San Martin (Shell Island), we parked at the edge of the sand, and going into the water, we had to avoid getting caught in a net some jerk placed in the water which ran diagonally deep into the water.

This kind of garbage would never happen here in the U.S. because of the population density compared to this part of Baja, and all of the police presence that would deter this kind of activity from happening. Hopefully, Fox will help prevent at least some of this garbage from happening, and regulating the fishing industry from overfishing its waters will be the 1st step.

Originally posted by DesertOutlaw
This past April I spent a week with my wife on our first anniversary in Puertecitos (south of San Felipe) and in Guadalupe Canyon. The local fishermen normally cease operations by the end of March, but the fishermen I saw in Puertecitos were aiding drug runners coming across the gulf late at night.



One visit to Baja and you are a cultural expert?
Do you know the fisherman's activity was drug running (did they come to your tent and offer for sale)? How do you know they were not delivering a catch for the next days cooking (oh, I forget, Puertecitos and Laguna Percebu have year round refrigeration now and buy their seafood frozen from El Nido and Pepito's)?

Do you understand shrimp and crab fishing practices (by boat and beach, day or night, where & when)? Are you a Baja Mexico marine fisheries expert?

Do you have any grasp of the various law enforcement agencies present in San Felipe, or the nearby Marina, and International Airport?

Why would a honest fisherman resort to drug running?

He said/she said is hearsay -- total BS. Were they drug running or overfishing? What evidence do you have to back up this stereotypical slander of Mexican fishermen?

Comments like yours are one reason why many Mexicans discourage interaction with citizens of the USA, you do not understand their way of life.

Please, if you have a personal issue with Mexican fishermen, take the comments to the Chit-Chat board.

Happy Trails!