Nearly one hundred civil society organizations and international specialists demanded that Mexico immediately reverse the dismantling of protections for the vaquita marina, the most endangered small cetacean species on the planet.
Mexico City (October 28, 2026) – Just days before the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) formally reviews Mexico’s compliance with the measures implemented to protect the vaquita marina (Phocoena sinus) – the most endangered small cetacean species – nearly one hundred national and international civil organizations and specialists from around the world signed in support of an urgent letter addressed to President Claudia Sheinbaum. The document, led by the mexican NGO Conservación de Mamíferos Marinos (COMARINO) with the support of Centro de Conservación Cetacea (CCC Chile), demands the immediate reversal of a Decree that left more than 80% of the species’ protection zone unprotected against gillnets, reducing it to just 225 square kilometers with no buffer zones.
The letter will also be presented to the CITES Secretariat when the formal review of the measures Mexico has adopted under its Compliance Action Plan begins in early November.
A Historic and Unprecedented Extinction Alert
The letter highlights that in August 2023, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) issued its first official Extinction Alert in its more than 80-year history. This mechanism, created by the IWC Scientific Committee, is only activated in cases where scientific evidence demonstrates that a species or population of cetaceans faces an imminent risk of disappearance. In the letter, the organizations state that “the fact that the vaquita marina was the first and only species to receive an Extinction Alert since the IWC’s founding in 1946 irrefutably evidences the extreme severity of its conservation status, and ignoring it would constitute a historically unforgivable act of negligence.”
Recent scientific data confirm that only between 5 and 13 individuals remain in the world, with the only significant threat to their survival being incidental capture in gillnets.
A Fatal Setback
The Decree recently issued by the Mexican government reduces the gillnet prohibition area by approximately 86% and creates a 350-meter-wide transit corridor through the Zero Tolerance Area—a space that until now was strictly off-limits to both maritime traffic and fishing. This latter measure not only undermines surveillance efforts but could also facilitate access for illegal vessels to the most critical zone for the species’ survival.
It also authorizes gillnet fishing outside the reduced area, and instead of establishing buffer zones, it creates an adjacent “Special Use Zone” and further shortens the nighttime fishing ban. Additionally, the Decree brings deadly nets up to the boundaries of the small Zero Tolerance polygon and fragments it in two.
In response, the signatories of the letter state that “far from protecting the vaquita marina, these measures exponentially increase the risk that the last remaining individuals will become entangled in nets and die, precipitating the definitive collapse of the species.”
The Driving Force Behind the Catastrophe
The letter also addresses the root of the problem, highlighting that the vaquita marina has been driven to the brink of extinction by the totoaba fishery (Totoaba macdonaldi), a species also critically endangered, whose swim bladder is highly valued on the black market in Asia, primarily in China.
The letter adds that a report by the United Kingdom’s Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) revealed that the illegal trade in totoaba swim bladders remains active and is increasing on social media platforms.
In this regard, the NGOs and specialists state that “because the totoaba and the vaquita marina are similar in size, it is impossible to fish totoaba with gillnets without endangering the vaquita, so any permissiveness is a death sentence for the vaquita marina.”
The Reputational Cost for Mexico
The letter warns that if the vaquita marina goes extinct, Mexico will become the second nation in the world, after China (with the dolphin known as the baiji), to allow a cetacean species to disappear forever. “This legacy of extinction would be an indelible stain on the country’s environmental reputation,” states the letter.
It also underscores that Mexico has assumed international commitments under CITES, the IWC, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and UNESCO, which in 2026 reiterated its utmost concern over the critical status of the species and warned that sightings continue to occur outside protected areas.
Global Demands
The letter, which collectively represents the will of millions of people around the world, requests, among other things, that President Sheinbaum’s government: immediately reverse the weakening of protection measures; strengthen law enforcement to ensure compliance as well as the dismantling of illegal fishing and ghost nets; combat the illegal totoaba trade by collaborating with other countries and demanding that social media platforms immediately remove advertisements for totoaba products; implement and finance fishing alternatives; and restore scientific monitoring by facilitating scientists’ access to the vaquita marina’s habitat.
The signatories conclude the letter by stating that “extinction is the ultimate expression of the bankruptcy of a social system that, by allowing the continued disappearance of the planet’s biodiversity, leads us toward our own self-destruction,” and therefore “deregulation is neither a legal nor an ethical option in the face of the threat of extinction” of this species.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Yolanda Alaniz
alanizy@yahoo.com