Judge Grants Ban on Imports in Dolphin-Safe Tuna Case

Environmentalists have won another round in a worldwide campaign to end tuna fishing techniques that endanger dolphins.

They learned late Monday that they had won a preliminary injunction banning all tuna imported from countries that buy tuna from such nations as Mexico, Venezuela and Vanuatu, where dolphin-harming methods are still used. Exporting countries likely to be affected include Italy, Spain and Japan, which export tuna used by U.S. delicatessens and restaurants.

The injunction was granted Friday by Judge Thelton E. Henderson, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.

“Under these provisions, the countries have two choices: Either they stop buying from Mexico or they stop selling tuna to the U.S.,” said David Phillips, executive director of Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco-based environmental group.

The group had brought suit last summer against the U.S. Commerce Department to stiffen a ban on tuna imported from such intermediary countries.

The government had allowed tuna imports from those nations if individual shipments could be certified to be “dolphin-safe.” But environmentalists argued that Congress’ intent was to pressure nations that were not in total compliance by imposing a complete ban on their exports, according to Deborah A. Sivas, an attorney with Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe, in San Francisco, which represents Earth Island.

Mexico alone sells as much as 50,000 tons of such tuna annually to Italy, Phillips said.