How Saving Whales Advances Democracy

The most consequential political campaigns for the future of Mexico are not those being orchestrated by the dinosaurs of the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, or by members of the opposition parties. The campaign with the greatest implication for democracy in Mexico is the one being waged over the gray whale--a marine mammal that spends each winter in the secluded Pacific lagoons of Baja California.

Since 1995, environmental groups have attempted to prevent Exportadora de Sal, a company jointly owned by the Mexican government (51%) and Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan (49%), from building the world’s largest salt production facility on the shoreline of San Ignacio Lagoon, the last undeveloped gray whale refuge on Earth. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the lagoon is the cultural and ecological heart of the 6.2-million-acre Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, the largest protected area in Mexico and Latin America.

The industrial salt facility would destroy more than 525,000 acres inside the reserve--an area larger than Rocky Mountain National Park and more than twice the size of the lagoon. The project is championed by Herminio Blanco, the powerful chief of Mexico’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and Baja California Sur Gov. Leonel Cota.

The first-ever primary--Jan. 7--to pick PRI’s presidential candidate made very few changes to a political system dominated by the “Revolutionary Family.” In contrast, the battle over San Ignacio Lagoon and its gray whales will determine whether Mexico evolves into a nation that permits private citizens and nonaligned organizations to participate in national policy and local economic development debates.

The controversy over the salt project has become so heated that Environment Minister Julia Carabias recently lashed out at environmentalists for a campaign she says does a “disservice” to Mexico by assaulting its sovereignty.

That the Mexican government would feign surprise at opposition to the salt project and the spirited defense of the gray whale is astonishing. For years, the government made the gray whale an animal superstar. In 1994, the now-defunct Ministry of Fisheries aired public service commercials that displayed frolicking gray whales with a message that flashed, “In Mexico, we protect you.”

Ironically, former President Luis Echeverria made San Ignacio Lagoon a wildlife refuge in 1972 to protect it from the foreign-financed development that Exportadora de Sal and Mitsubishi propose. Gray whale conservation in Mexico is partly a reaction to the legacy of American whalers hunting the mammal to near extinction in the 19th century. Because of this history, Echeverria declared that protecting such coastal areas was “an example of the long and difficult fight to ensure sovereignty over natural resources.”

What the gray whale campaign truly demonstrates, however, is the limited value of multi-party elections when the PRI now includes opposition politicians who still are dependent on federal funds to govern. When Gov. Cota--a card-carrying member of the PRI who switched his affiliation to the Revolutionary Democratic Party for political expediency--took office last spring, he immediately assumed control of the pro-salt project campaign initiated by his predecessor, Guillermo Mercado, a member of the PRI who governed the state into near bankruptcy. Cota’s trump card is his influence over a forthcoming environmental impact assessment by the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur in La Paz. Cota allocates the university’s budget, so it is no surprise that scientists working on the assessment have criticized environmentalists for daring to suggest that the project could harm the environment and gray whales.

Despite the obstacles the PRI places on open political participation, fishermen and whale-watching guides from San Ignacio Lagoon have been eloquent and articulate opponents of the project. Their participation in the gray whale campaign is a sign that the local people are feeling more empowered to question ruling party dictates.

In a letter to President Ernesto Zedillo, one local leader asked: “Do you expect that when plans are announced to build an industrial project that will take millions of gallons of water out of our lagoon, that we will hold a party and welcome the project even though we know it will destroy the resources we depend on?”

The fishing communities and environmental organizations involved in the gray whale campaign are the real key to a more open and pluralistic political system in Mexico. A real and vibrant democracy will only occur in Mexico when independent groups are allowed to emerge from the shadows of the PRI.