The United States will allow Mexican tuna to be sold in the United States under the "dolphin-safe" label, ending a 12-year trade conflict, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
"This means that the United States, based on results of research by international organizations ... has recognized that Mexican tuna fishing boats operate under conditions that assure sustainable fishing without affecting dolphin populations," the ministry said in a statement.
The two countries have been at odds for years over whether Mexican fishing harms dolphins. Last year, Mexico threatened to plead its case before international trade bodies if Washington did not lift what it called a "de facto embargo" on its tuna.
Environmentalists have decried previous U.S. attempts to relax the dolphin-safe standards for tuna. They argue that encircling dolphins in large tuna nets kills too many of the marine mammals, and say Washington is ignoring the results of its own studies and caving under Mexican pressure.
The Earth Island Institute condemned the decision in a statement posted on its Web site on Tuesday.
"The Bush administration is selling out dolphins in order to reward Mexican tuna millionaires," David Phillips, director of the environmental group's International Marine Mammal Project, said in the statement. "If the secretary's decision is left intact, 20,000-40,000 dolphins each year will be sacrificed and falsely labeled Mexican tuna will be on the U.S. market as 'dolphin safe.' We cannot allow that to occur."
NEW FINDING
On Tuesday, the U.S. Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service announced a new finding that encircling dolphins had no significant adverse impact on dolphin populations in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean, where the Mexican tuna fleet fishes.
The Commerce Department said the practice had killed huge numbers of dolphins at first, but dolphin deaths had decreased significantly as the fishing technique was refined.
When the United States set up the dolphin-safe tuna label in 1991, it banned any tuna caught using nets set on dolphins.
"With today's decision, the criteria are changed so that tuna harvested ... by ... vessels (using large nets) can be labeled dolphin-safe, even if dolphins are encircled, so long as no dolphins are killed or seriously injured," the Commerce Department statement said. A State Department spokesman, had no immediate comment on Wednesday. A Commerce spokesman could not be reached.
Mexico has long said its fleet complies with international accords on dolphin protection.
In 2000, the U.S. Commerce Department moved to ease certification of dolphin-safe tuna, which would have allowed Mexican tuna to be labeled dolphin-safe, but that was overturned in 2001 by a San Francisco federal appeals court.
Phillips said his group will file a legal challenge to the latest action, saying the decision is "clearly illegal."
Source: Reuters