PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) -- Tuna-catching countries have agreed to place legal limits on dolphin kills if the United States lifts an embargo that has hurt their fishing industries.
Twelve countries, including the United States, signed the "Declaration of Panama" on Wednesday. While several major environmental groups welcomed the declaration, which was also signed by Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Belize, France, Spain, Peru and Vanuatu, others have argued the effort would not go far enough to protect dolphins.
The declaration commits fishing countries to take legal action to hold dolphin kills to 5,000 a year or less if the United States lifts the embargo imposed in 1991 on tuna from several countries whose fishing led to massive dolphin slaughters on the Pacific coast. Some 423,000 dolphins were killed by tuna fishermen in 1972, according to the Center for Marine Conservation in the United States. That was the year Congress first moved to limit dolphin kills by U.S. fishermen under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Later laws applied restrictions to tuna imported into the country.
Representatives of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama said their countries have lost $100 million in export revenues since the 1991 boycott was imposed. They claim they already have made huge strides and cut dolphin kills to 3,600 by 1994.
Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the National Wildlife Federation were among the groups supporting the declaration. But others have decried it. On Monday, Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Reps. George Miller, D-Calif. and Gerry E. Studds, D-Mass., released an open letter to President Clinton expressing "grave concern" over the measure. They complained it would let foreign companies use a "dolphin safe" label even if their practices continued to endanger dolphin populations and said it "is nothing short of consumer fraud." Several House Republicans are backing the measure to repeal the tuna import restrictions.