For many, hospitals and clinics are places to avoid.
Thousands of Mexicans suffering from common illnesses are avoiding seeking treatment for fear of becoming infected with coronavirus.
Despite the risks these types of conditions carry, diagnoses of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, intestinal infections, acute respiratory ailments and tuberculosis, among others, are at an all time low due to the focus the health sector has placed on combating covid-19.
New cases of many diseases historically affecting Mexicans have fallen by 40% in the last year compared to those reported in 2019. There are concerns that obesity, high blood pressure and acute respiratory infections, which have for years killed thousands of Mexican citizens, are now going without treatment.
The latter have shown the biggest decline in reported cases, dropping from 23.7 million in 2019 to 13.7 million last year. Consultations for respiratory problems in general declined 42%.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, and in line with advice from major health organizations, the government has used most public hospitals to treat coronavirus patients, aiming to avoid hospitals becoming overwhelmed. But attention has subsequently been taken away from those with other illnesses.
“Yes there is disruption because everything is focused on Covid-19 and other services are not being carried out; I can imagine that when they start to produce the data, the vaccination coverage of Mexican children will have suffered because their parents did not take them to be treated and all these prevention issues will have to be endured,” explained Dr. Carlos Magis Rodríguez, a researcher and professor at the National Autonomous University.
The reduction of health services as well as government advice for people to stay at home if they showed any flu or cold like symptoms has meant that face-to-face appointments have been scarce and those who became unwell had to rely on remote consultations.
López Obrador and senior officials during Monday's meeting with the US president.
President López Obrador and United States President Joe Biden reaffirmed the “enduring partnership” between Mexico and the U.S. during a virtual meeting on Monday and committed to working together on a range of issues including the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 700,000 lives in the two countries.
Both leaders committed to working jointly to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, to reinvigorate economic cooperation and to explore areas of cooperation on climate change, they said in a joint statement.
López Obrador and Biden also reaffirmed the importance of combatting corruption and maintaining bilateral security cooperation. The security relationship came under pressure late last year after former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos was arrested on drug trafficking charges by the United States without notifying Mexico of its plan. But in a surprise move apparently designed to appease Mexico, the U.S. dropped the charges and sent the ex-army chief home, where it was determined he didn’t have a case to answer to.
The leaders also discussed migration on Monday and “committed to immigration policies that recognize the dignity of migrants and the imperative of orderly, safe, and regular migration.”
López Obrador said Saturday that he would ask his United States counterpart to consider establishing a guest worker program for Mexican and Central American migrants but the statement made no specific mention of such a proposal.
However, it did say that the two presidents agreed to collaborate to “develop legal pathways for migration” in addition to cooperating to address the root causes of regional migration and to improve migration management.
The statement said that López Obrador and Biden reaffirmed the importance of close collaboration to respond to the pandemic, but the cooperation doesn’t include – for the time being at least – the U.S. sending Covid-19 vaccines south of the border, which had been one of the Mexican president’s objectives going into the meeting.
The Biden administration said before the meeting that the United States will first focus on vaccinating its population before considering sending shots abroad.
“The administration’s focus is on ensuring that every American is vaccinated. And once we accomplish that objective, we’re happy to discuss further steps,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told a news conference.
At the start of Monday’s meeting, Biden told reporters that the two leaders would discuss the possibility of sending vaccines to Mexico but the joint statement made no mention of any vaccine distribution plans. However, López Obrador said Tuesday that Biden demonstrated “great understanding” of Mexico’s request for the U.S. to supply vaccines to its southern neighbor.
Mexico started its vaccination program on December 24, 10 days after the United States began inoculating its citizens, but has only administered 2.5 million doses since then, whereas the U.S. has given about 77 million. Mexico has agreements to secure more than 200 million vaccines but fewer than 4 million had arrived by Monday.
López Obrador and Trump in the White House last year.
In his opening remarks at Monday’s meeting, Biden said the United States and Mexico are “stronger when we stand together” and “safer when we work together, whether it’s addressing the challenges of our shared border or getting this pandemic under control.”
He reminisced about his trips to Mexico as vice president, noting that he met López Obrador on one occasion, and declared that he treasured his memories of his visits and hoped to build on them over the next four years.
Biden also noted that the Obama-Biden administration “made a commitment that we look at Mexico as an equal, not as somebody who is south of our border.”
“You are equal. And what you do in Mexico and how you succeed impacts dramatically on what the rest of the hemisphere will look like,” the U.S. president said.
In turn, López Obrador thanked Biden “for stating that Mexico is important to you” and committing to treat the country as an equal. He said that maintaining good bilateral relations is fundamental and that the governments of the two countries should hold talks periodically.
After noting that Mexico and the United States are united not only by geography but also by their economies, trade, culture, history and friendship, Lopez Obrador cited a quote attributed to former president Porfirio Díaz.
“He would say ‘poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.’ I can now say, lucky Mexico, so close to God and not so far from the United States,” he said.
“I believe that our proximity will allow us to develop better in these times. … Integration will strengthen both our countries as we are faced with this inevitable expansion of other regions. Our relations are strategic,” López Obrador said.
“… I’m very grateful that … you want an equal footing in our relationship. That there is respect for each other’s sovereignty is very important,” the president said, alluding to his view that the United States should not seek to intervene in Mexico’s affairs or tell it what to do on issues over which it has sovereignty, such as energy policy.
“We have to cooperate for development [but] with independence, with autonomy. … I’m very thankful that you are willing to maintain good relations … for the good of our people,” he said.
Under pressure from President López Obrador, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has reversed a decision to classify details of a massive blackout in December for two years.
The newspaper El Universal reported last Thursday that its request for access to a public version of the file on the December 28 power outage that affected some 10.3 million customers was rejected. The newspaper said the state-owned company justified keeping the file under wraps until February 2023 on the grounds that a final ruling about the causes of the blackout has not yet been made.
Making the file public now would be to hand over details that are not yet official, the CFE told El Universal, adding that releasing it could also have an impact on the process to determine the causes of the outage.
A day after El Universal published its report, López Obrador said he had told the CFE to make the file public.
“We have nothing to hide, he who owes nothing fears nothing,” he told his regular news conference on Friday. “… I read the thing about the CFE and there is an instruction for nothing to be reserved.”
In a statement issued on Friday night, the CFE said the decision to reserve the file was made by its transmission division without the knowledge of the company’s general management.
“For that reason, the decision was overruled. In order to contribute to transparency and access to public information, the CFE has ordered an exhaustive investigation … [into the causes of the blackout] by a team of external specialists and once it’s concluded the corresponding ruling will be released,” the company said.
It didn’t say when it expected the investigation to be completed.
While a major outage two weeks ago was due to an interruption to the natural gas supply caused by freezing weather in Texas, the cause of the December blackout was less clear.
The CFE variously blamed the shutdown of 16 power stations due to transmission line irregularities, a high concentration of renewable energy in the electricity system, court rulings and a wildfire in Tamaulipas.
President López Obrador responded by saying that Mexico needs to move toward self-sufficiency in energy sources but he is opposed to fracking, limiting the country’s capacity to access natural gas, and his government is attempting to sideline the renewables sector by legislating to prioritize the injection of CFE-generated coal and gas power into the national grid over that generated by sources such as wind and solar.
Program to enable visitors to experience the historical and cultural legacy of the Mayan people.
An environmentally-friendly tourism initiative in Quintana Roo that seeks to give visitors an authentic cultural experience has attracted more than US $1 million in international funding, giving eight communities across three municipalities a welcome boost.
Quintana Roo Tourism Minister Marisol Vanegas Pérez announced that Maya Ka’an, a region consisting of eight communities in Tulum, Felipe Carrillo Puerto and José María Morelos, will receive $1.4 million from the United Nations Global Environment Facility (GEF) trust fund.
The money will be used to promote Maya Ka’an, provide sustainability training to tourism cooperatives in the eight communities and improve the region’s ecotourism offerings.
The GEF will provide the funds as part of a $7.2-million grant to a sustainable tourism initiative known as Project Kuxatur (“Living Tourism” in Mayan), which will be implemented in Maya Ka’an as well as areas of Oaxaca and Baja California Sur.
“Kuxatur is a unique project … and it’s arriving at a key time as it will allow us to promote the tourism activities of the tourism companies of Maya Ka’an, which have been affected by the health emergency, and at the same time it will contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. … This destination [will become] a model of sustainability both in tourism practices and in the life of the communities,” said Gonzalo Merediz Alonso, executive director of Amigos de Sian Ka’an, an environmental, conservation and sustainable development NGO.
‘Majestic natural environments’ a feature of the Maya Ka’an region.
“The cooperatives will be trained in sustainable development with the aim of consolidating Maya Ka’an as a biodiversity-friendly destination through the design and implementation of innovative sustainable tourism policies and models,” he said.
Maya Ka’an was founded as a tourism destination in 2014 to provide more employment opportunities to local residents who might otherwise have to migrate to destinations such as Cancún and Playa del Carmen to find work and to share Mayan culture with visitors.
The tourism initiative “aims to generate local income across the Yucatán Peninsula without the cultural, social, and environmental damage that often accompanies large-scale tourism,” according to Condé Nast Traveler magazine.
The eight communities that comprise the region are Punta Allen, Chemuyil and Punta Herrero in Tulum; Tihosuco, Señor, Chunhuhub and Noh Bec in Felipe Carillo Puerto; and Kantemó in José María Morelos.
Visitors can learn about Mayan traditions and customs in the various communities and participate in a range of recreational activities in a variety of natural settings. Caves, cenotes, beaches, coastal lagoons and colonial buildings are among the attractions in the Maya Ka’an region, considered an emerging destination by the state government.
The destination is described as ideal for visitors who enjoy outdoor activities and seek to interact with ancestral cultures and traditions.
A fish chowder made with salmon is truly decadent.
Recent news that some of Mexico’s most popular fish for eating have been overfished, causing severe population declines, has caused me to rethink my eating habits.
In the overall scheme of things, do the small amounts of fish I eat on a weekly basis really make a difference? Maybe not. But better to be an informed consumer and make informed choices about what to eat when possible, no?
Snapper, grouper, bluefin tuna and octopus are again on the overfished lists of conservation NGOs that cite Mexico’s noncompliance with annual reporting since 2000. So where does that leave us seafood lovers? Many people turn to frozen salmon, but that has its own issues.
While some salmon is caught in the Gulf of Mexico, most of what’s available in Mexico is imported. And the sad truth is that most of that — even though labeled “wild-caught in Alaska”— has been frozen, shipped to China for processing, frozen again and shipped back to this side of the world to be sold.
So, yes, it was “wild-caught in Alaska” — but how long ago? That’s why it’s so inexpensive in big-box stores like Sam’s Club or Costco. Somewhere on the package, in teeny, tiny print, it will say (or should say) “processed in China.” When I asked a chef friend what that meant, he laughed and said, “It means you shouldn’t eat it.”
Add a grilled or baked fillet to this rice bowl and you’re in business.
While I’m uncomfortable eating food that’s vacationed halfway around the world before it ends up in my mouth, others are not.
The Alaskan Salmon Board says they don’t understand what all the fuss is about; the fishing industry has been doing this for years, and only recently, with stricter labeling laws, has the public become aware of it.
However you look at it, though, salmon is delicious! I like to add a grilled or baked fillet to a salad or rice bowl. One of the simplest ways to cook it is to make packets. Put a serving-size fillet, some sliced tomato, onion and fresh herbs in a piece of foil big enough to close around it. Maybe add some capers or minced jalapenos, then drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, wrap securely and bake in a 400 F oven for 20–25 minutes. Voilà! Serve atop rice or grilled veggies.
Salmon Chowder
1 lb. boneless, skinless salmon, cut into ¾-inch chunks
2 Tbsp. water
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. flour
1 qt. whole milk OR plain soy or almond milk
1 lb. russet or other potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
1 bay leaf
Optional: ½ lb. bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces; ½ cup clam juice
Minced fresh herbs (parsley, dill, chives, cilantro) for serving
Combine bacon, if using, and water in a big pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until water evaporates and bacon begins to brown and crisp, about 8 minutes. Add onion, celery, salt and pepper and continue cooking until onions are soft but not brown, about 4 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring, until merged. Stir in clam juice, if using, milk, potatoes and bay leaf. Simmer about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender. Stir in fish and simmer about 3 minutes, just until cooked through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, garnished with fresh herbs.
A rémoulade is the perfect spread for this salmon burger.
Perfect Salmon Burgers
Having bread crumbs only on the outside allows the fish to stay moist and flavorful inside a delicate crispy crust.
Patties
1½ lbs. boneless, skinless salmon, finely chopped
3 Tbsp. minced mixed fresh parsley and chives
¼ tsp. ground coriander
1-inch piece fresh peeled ginger, grated
Salt and pepper
Rémoulade
½ cup plus 2 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. capers, drained and minced
2½ tsp. minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, tarragon and chives (about 1 tsp. each minced parsley and chives and 1/2 tsp. minced tarragon)
2 tsp. fresh juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
½ tsp. drained prepared horseradish
Fresh juice from 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
1 cup panko bread crumbs
Vegetable oil
Optional: 4 cornichons, minced
For serving: cole slaw, 4 brioche hamburger buns, buttered and toasted
Make the rémoulade: In small bowl, mix mayonnaise, capers, cornichons, herbs, lemon juice, mustard and horseradish. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
In a bowl, combine salmon, herbs, coriander, ginger, salt and pepper. Set aside.
Spread panko crumbs on a plate. Divide salmon mixture into four portions; roll each into a ball, then flatten to a 1-inch thick patty.
Place each patty in the panko, pressing down so crumbs adhere to bottom of the patty. Carefully flip patty and press gently again, then transfer to a plate. Repeat with remaining patties.
Add oil to a large skillet; heat over medium-high heat. Carefully place patties into oil and cook, turning once or twice, until lightly browned on both sides, about 10 minutes for medium-rare.
Drain patties on a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Smear rémoulade on top and bottom halves of each bun, add salmon patty and cole slaw if desired.
While optional, a bit of harissa or other chile paste gives broiled salmon a nice kick.
Broiled Salmon with Chili-Lime Mayo
The mayonnaise acts as an insulating layer, keeping the fish underneath even more tender and moist.
1 cup mayonnaise
Zest of 2 limes plus 2 tsp. fresh lime juice
½ tsp. ground coriander
2 pounds boneless salmon fillet with or without skin, cut into 4 portions
Salt and pepper
Optional: 2 Tbsp. harissa or other chile paste
Preheat broiler; set oven rack to 6 inches below broiler. In a small bowl, mix mayonnaise, chile paste if using, lime zest and juice, coriander, salt and pepper.
Line baking sheet with foil. Season salmon lightly with salt and pepper. Set salmon on a baking sheet and smear a thin, even layer of mayo mixture over surface and sides.
Broil salmon until browned on top, about 5 minutes. If salmon becomes well-browned on top before cooked enough in the center, switch off broiler and bake at 425 F, until done, 1 to 2 minutes longer. — seriouseats.com
Reacting to a big uptick in traffic on its e-commerce site since the coronavirus pandemic began, Home Depot México is investing in its website with the aim of giving online customers essentially the same shopping options as they have in one of its brick-and-mortar stores.
The home improvements retailer will invest 3.3 billion pesos (US $160 million) this year on e-commerce strategies and two new physical stores.
The firm last made a big investment in 2019, strengthening the integration between its online and physical stores, allowing people to order online and pick up their purchases in a nearby store.
According to Home Depot president José Rodríguez Garza, that move paid off in a big way once the pandemic began last spring, sending Mexicans into their homes for many more hours a day.
“The investments we’ve made in the last number of years to better our capacity are now bearing fruit,” he said.
Company officials knew that things were changing last year when sales on the e-store began to spike. They saw the same number of orders in one day that they used to receive during the course of a week, according to Rodríguez.
“Our online business accelerated such that it achieved results [in 2020] that we planned for 2021,” he said.
Home Depot in the United States also seems to have benefitted from an increase in home improvement projects by customers with more time on their hands: the U.S. company recently reported that its revenue had increased 20% in its latest fiscal year and told the Wall Street Journal that consistent demand has continued during February.
Eager to meet the increased demand for e-commerce here, Home Depot México is expanding its distribution center in Atitalaquia, Hidalgo, to allow more inventory capacity. The company is also revamping its technology for greater efficiency and is mechanizing certain distribution activities.
However, it has clearly not ready to give up on brick-and-mortar sales: it is also considering opening at least three more stores in Mexico, including one in the city of Querétaro already in the works, Rodríguez said.
The federal government has detected deficiencies in 22 community-built roads in the same number of municipalities in Oaxaca.
The Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT) conducted an audit of 22 of 45 roads whose construction was authorized by the government in 2019 and found that all of them had shortcomings. Poor-quality construction materials were used in many cases and there were violations of government building codes, the audit found.
“It was determined that the quality control in the construction of the roads is deficient,” the SCT said in a report.
The ministry also detected irregularities in spending on the projects — budget for the 22 roads was 563.6 million pesos (US $27.29 million) — and found that there was a lack of supervision during their construction.
SCT project officials did not supervise the quantities of aggregates used in the production of the hydraulic concrete, the report said.
The SCT said there were questions over spending in all 22 municipalities it visited and that the use of millions of pesos was not properly documented. It also said that rock was removed from rivers for road construction without environmental approval and that some workers were not paid properly and/or denied benefits to which they were entitled.
The findings are at odds with remarks made by President López Obrador when he inaugurated the first roads built as part of the scheme, intended to provide jobs for residents of poor communities in Oaxaca and avoid the use of large, private contractors, whom the president has accused of corruption.
“This concrete road was built by the people, we just helped them with the delivery of the budget. They managed the money with honesty,” he said in the municipality of San Antonio Sinicahua on January 17, 2020.
“What they did are works or art, it’s something extraordinary,” López Obrador said the next day in Santos Reyes Yucuná, another Mixtec region municipality where a new road was built.
One of the deficient projects is that in Santiago Laxopa, a municipality northeast of Oaxaca city in the northern Sierra region. Sections of the road buckled and sank late last year before it was even opened, while a safety barrier was also broken, the newspaper Reforma reported.
One of the leaders of the committee in charge of the project said there was little assistance from the SCT, explaining that a ministry official only inspected the construction a few times.
“It’s sad. … One part [of the road] was done well and another part wasn’t. I don’t know if it’s a geological fault, human error or bad luck,” Erasto Robles said.
Another recently built road that has not fared well is a stretch of highway that connects the northern Sierra municipality of San Pedro Yolox to the rest of the state.
López Obrador has pledged to provide funds for the construction of 350 stone and concrete roads in marginalized municipalities in Mexico. In 2019 and 2020, 58 roads were built by residents in Oaxaca under the initiative but a significant percentage of them will need to undergo repairs before they can be safely used.
The president has said the program would show there was no “great science” in building a road. But what little science may be required seems to have been in short supply.
A mass shooting in Guadalajara’s metropolitan area Saturday left 11 people dead and two seriously injured, closing out a violent month.
According to the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office, armed men in multiple vehicles arrived around 6 p.m. Saturday at an intersection in the city of Tonalá and began shooting at a group of men sitting on the sidewalk.
The site is known as a place where local laborers congregate after work and wait to be paid their weekly salaries, neighbors said.
The armed group shot over 70 times at the male construction workers who had just gotten off work, authorities said.
Among the people killed was a man in charge of paying the workers, as well as his son, according to the newspaper El Universal. A witness told the newspaper Informador that the boy was about 12 years old.
Another man died inside a nearby home.
The two people who were injured were bystanders: a 35-year-old woman and her 5-year-old son, both of whom were shot by stray bullets. They remain hospitalized.
The assailants fled immediately after the shooting. Police said they have no leads, despite local, state and federal authorities spending several hours on Saturday night searching for the suspects and doing helicopter flyovers.
It was the fourth multiple homicide reported in the city’s metropolitan area during February, and the one with the highest death toll. The most recent incident occurred on February 18 in San Pedro Tlaquepaque, when an armed gang killed five people on a farm during daylight hours in the Guayabitos neighborhood.
Another attack on February 17, which took place around dawn in a public park in Guadalajara, left four dead, while on February 10, an armed group shot and killed five people in Tlaquepaque.
Electoral fraud has caused a lot of damage in Mexico, president says.
President López Obrador has called on citizens to report candidates using public money or resources from organized crime to fund their political campaigns.
Voters will go to the polls on June 6 to elect municipal, state and federal representatives, including many mayors, governors in 15 states and 500 lower house federal deputies.
“A candidate using money from the public budget, organized crime or white-collar crime should be reported because unfortunately this exists,” López Obrador said at an event in Tlaltenango, Zacatecas, on Sunday.
The president said that a “national agreement for democracy” put forward by the federal government and supported by 25 state governors as of Monday morning will help to ensure that candidates’ campaigns are not improperly funded.
“What is this agreement for? … So that budget money is not used in political campaigns. The budget is the people’s money, everyone’s money, it doesn’t belong to a party. The commitment is that the municipal, state and federal budgets not be used to assist candidates,” López Obrador said.
He noted that electoral fraud is now considered a serious crime and that anyone found guilty faces jail time.
“It’s different now, it’s now in the constitution and in the laws that the electoral prosecutor can put on trial anyone who doesn’t respect the will of the people, and the electoral criminal will go to jail … without the right to bail. This isn’t well known but once it begins to be applied it will be known that it’s serious,” said López Obrador, who claims that electoral fraud cost him an election for governor in Tabasco in 1994 and successive presidential elections in 2006 and 2012.
“Electoral fraud has done a lot of damage to us in the country and we need there to be an authentic, true democracy,” he said.
The president also said that the federal government will provide protection to candidates in parts of Mexico where criminal groups seek to influence the political process.
“There are regions where they decide who the candidate should be, who will be mayor, and they threaten the other candidates,” López Obrador said.
“That cannot be allowed to go on. In regions where this practice is usual we’re going to protect all the candidates so that it is the people who freely choose [their representatives],” he said.
Appearing alongside López Obrador at the event, Zacatecas Governor Alejandro Tello said his government would support the agreement for democracy and ensure that fair elections are held in the state.
“Today we are immersed in an electoral process, … my government will be respectful of the law and generate impartial and equal conditions for all candidates running for the different representative positions. I join the national agreement in favor of democracy,” he said.
López Obrador said Monday morning that 25 state leaders including Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum had indicated their support for the agreement. He urged governors last Tuesday to join the pact, saying it was needed to ensure clean elections and political campaigns across the country.
A vaquita marina trapped in a gillnet. (Omar Vidal)
The federal government said Saturday it is considering reducing the area in the upper Gulf of California where the critically endangered vaquita marina porpoise is protected.
The measure would reduce the area where there is a ban on the use of gillnets, in which the world’s smallest porpoises are prone to becoming entangled and dying.
But there are fears that allowing the nets to be used across a larger area of the gulf would increase the risk of the species going extinct. There are currently as few as 10 vaquitas in the Gulf of California, the only place in the world they live.
The Environment Ministry (Semarnat) said that a decrease in the number of vaquitas and the area where they have been seen in recent years provides justification for reducing the size of the protected area.
The area extends from the Colorado River delta in the north of the Gulf past the fishing town of San Felipe on the west coast and near Puerto Peñasco on the east coast.
“The possibility of modifying the area of gillnet bans is being studied,” Semarnat said in a statement.
“There have been enough technical studies to indicate a possible reduction in the zone, according to the recent distribution of the vaquita marina in the area.”
The ministry said the possibility would be discussed by a group that includes fishermen, academics, members of the general public and government officials. A first report on the outcome of the discussions will be presented on March 26, Semarnat said.
Many fishermen have vehemently opposed the gillnet ban because they use the nets to catch totoaba, another endangered species whose swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and yield thousands of dollars per kilogram. Mexican drug cartels are said to be involved in the illegal fishing and trafficking of totoaba, a large member of the sciaenidae, or drum, family of fish.
Alex Olivera, Mexico representative for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that reducing the size of the protected area would inevitably increase the likelihood of the small remaining population of vaquitas encountering a gillnet.
“Reducing the zone … means cutting the area available to the vaquita marina, and of course this species doesn’t live in a pen, it lives in the marine environment, so as soon as it leaves the zone, it could face gillnets, which are a threat,” he said.
