Reports

Policy recommendations for the Government of China prior to the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, 11-24 October 2021

The illegal trade in totoaba fish maws is rapidly driving the vaquita marina to extinction. This small rare porpoise endemic to Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California is collateral damage in the pursuit of huge profits by organised criminal networks that sell totoaba swim bladders in Asian markets, primarily China.

Ahead of the 18th Conference of the Parties (CoP18) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), EIA has prepared comments and recommendations on listing proposals and working documents (as available at the time of writing)

The vaquita porpoise is the world’s most endangered marine mammal and its existence hangs by the slenderest of threads, with fewer than 30 individuals believed to remain. Its survival depends on the immediate and permanent elimination of all gillnets from its range in the Upper Gulf of California, Mexico

The vaquita’s plight as the world’s most endangered cetacean species is not due to direct threats such as hunting. Instead, its plummeting numbers are due to indiscriminate killing in illegal gillnets used to poach critically endangered totoaba fish

A new report to the 66th Standing Committee of CITES calling for an urgent crackdown on the illegal trade in endangered totoaba fish swim bladders which is driving the critically endangered vaquita porpoise to extinction as collateral damage