Saving a Gray Whale Nursery
Mexico joins the effort to protect an irreplaceable wildlife sanctuary.
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The government of Mexico has announced it will ban harmful, large-scale development on 109,000 acres of federal lands surrounding the world’s last undisturbed gray whale nursery at Laguna San Ignacio. Mexico's commitment marks a key milestone in an ambitious campaign -- launched in 2005 by a coalition of U.S and Mexican environmental groups, including NRDC -- to permanently protect 1 million acres of federal, communal and privately held lands around the lagoon. As this long-term conservation effort moves forward, though, commercial pressures are still closing in on San Ignacio.
Located in Baja California, Mexico, Laguna San Ignacio is part of the Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the best wildlife-viewing spots on the planet. Each year, hundreds of gray whales migrate there to give birth and nurse their young in the remote, shallow waters before swimming some 4,000 miles northward to their feeding grounds off Alaska. In 2001, an international outcry from more than a million activists forced Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. and the Mexican government to withdraw plans for a massive, polluting saltworks on the lagoon's banks.
Mexico's landmark decision to set aside all federal lands in the region for conservation has seriously undermined any future attempts to resurrect the saltworks project, which would have pumped 6,000 gallons of seawater per second out of the lagoon and would have produced 1 billion gallons of brine wastes each year.
But despite overwhelming international support for preserving San Ignacio's unique ecosystem, threats from a range of industries remain on private lands around the lagoon, including marina and resort development and escalating demand for oil and gas.
To keep the lagoon safe from industrialization, NRDC and its partners in the Laguna San Ignacio Conservation Alliance are seeking to raise $9.9 million to cover the costs of purchasing conservation easements from six ejidos (communal land cooperatives) that surround the lagoon. So far, the alliance has raised $3.64 million in contributions, and 249,000 acres of private, communal and federal lands are now permanently protected.
On a separate front, the Laguna San Ignacio Conservation Alliance helped derail a proposal for a 3,000-foot pier that could have opened the way to increased ship traffic along whale migration routes. The pier also might have destroyed sustainable lobster and abalone fisheries in the area.
