ENVIRONMENT | Protecting our natural resources
13 February 2008
International Dolphin-Protection Pact Reaches 10-Year Mark
Conservation program credited with reducing dolphin deaths by 99 percent
Washington -- A landmark international agreement to protect dolphins in the eastern Pacific Ocean celebrates its 10th anniversary in February.
The Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program (AIDCP) -- negotiated by representatives of the nations whose vessels fish for tuna in the eastern Pacific -- and a predecessor pact known as the La Jolla Agreement helped reduce dolphin deaths in the fishery by more than 99 percent since 1992.
Entities participating in the program include Belize, Canada, China, the Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the European Union, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, the United States, Vanuatu and Venezuela.
Specific requirements that contributed to the pact’s success include:
• A mandate that all dolphins be released unharmed from nets before fish are brought on board;
• 100 percent observer coverage for fishing vessels using large purse-seine nets;
• A tuna tracking and verification program; and
• Species- and population-specific annual dolphin mortality limits.
The agreement also established the International Review Panel, in which representatives from the environmental community, the fishing industry and participating governments review potential violations and request investigation and action by the relevant flag state.
EVERYBODY’S FAVORITE CETACEAN
Dolphins, classified as cetaceans, are part of the family of toothed whales that includes orcas and pilot whales. They are mammals, breathing through a blowhole on the top of their heads, and tend to be gray in color. Most dolphin species are long-lived -- researchers estimate some individuals might live more than 100 years.
Well-known for their agility and playful behavior, dolphins are favorites of wildlife watchers worldwide. Many species will leap out of the water, spy-hop (rise vertically out of the water to view their surroundings) and follow ships in synchronized formations that approximate aquatic ballets.
Dolphins live in social groups of five to several hundred, using echolocation to find prey and hunt cooperatively. They surround schools of fish, trapping them to allow individual dolphins to take turns swimming through the school and catching fish.
That sophisticated fishing practice led to dolphin deaths in the nets of commercial fishers. In the late 1950s, fishermen discovered that yellowfin tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean aggregated beneath schools of dolphin. In the wake of that discovery, the predominant fishing method in the region became encircling schools of dolphins with fishing nets to capture tuna concentrated below.
By conservative estimates, hundreds of thousands of dolphins died in the early years of this fishery. The Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife, an international conservation organization, puts the figure much higher, estimating more than 7 million dolphin deaths as the result of purse-seine fishing.
LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR DOLPHINS
In 1972, the U.S. Congress enacted the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which greatly reduced the annual dolphin bycatch by U.S. vessels fishing for tuna with purse-seine fishery in the eastern Pacific.
The act prohibits most takings of marine mammals, including dolphins, in U.S. waters and by U.S. citizens on the high seas, and bans importation of marine mammals and marine-mammal products into the United States.
By the early 1980s, only a few U.S. vessels remained in the eastern Pacific fishery as a result of MMPA prohibitions on encircling dolphins. However, foreign participation in the fishery continued to increase.
In the fall of 1992, representatives of nations whose vessels fished for tuna in the eastern Pacific signed the La Jolla Agreement, which placed voluntary annual limits on the number of dolphins that could be killed incidentally and lowered the limit each year over seven years, with a goal of eliminating dolphin mortality. This pact established a voluntary International Dolphin Conservation Program.
In 1995, the United States, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Spain negotiated the Panama Declaration, which set conservative annual dolphin mortality limits and helped reduce dolphin bycatch in commercial fisheries with sound ecosystem management.
Countries participating in the voluntary program negotiated the Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program, a binding treaty, in February 1998. Since it took effect in February 1999, the treaty has been amended to reflect member nations’ actions to improve implementation of the pact. Nations that have ratified the agreement include Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, the United States, Vanuatu and Venezuela. Additionally, Bolivia, Colombia and the European Union apply the agreement provisionally.
Other legal protections for dolphins include the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which protects all species of dolphin; and the U.S. Endangered Species Act, under which the Chinese River dolphin and the Indus River dolphin are listed as endangered.
“The protection of dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean … has long been a high priority for the United States,” President Bill Clinton said in signing the U.S. law endorsing the International Dolphin Conservation Program in 1997. He called strengthening the International Dolphin Conservation Program a major victory for international dolphin-protection efforts.
See also “Key U.S. Environmental Law Helps Save Species from Extinction.”
