What's That?
Mitsubishi Corporation
Threatens Gray Whale Sanctuary
Eco-Seas
Story by Marty Snyderman
Photos by Norbert Wu
 There
was no doubt that the speaker was totally committed to the cause. I
do not recall his name, but in my mind's eye I can still see his image
in the videotape he showed, in which a crew of four men in a rubber
boat had positioned themselves between a pod of whales and a much larger
Russian whaling vessel. Yelling up to whalers who were leaning over
the railing on the bow of their ship, the gang of conservationists
in the raft promised that the whalers would be forced to run over them
if they continued the hunt. It was clearly a case of David versus Goliath.
In this case, David was a protectionist group standing up for the lives
of the whales they wanted to save, and they were doing whatever they
could to stand tall against their Goliath, a whaling ship from a superpower
in international waters.
Despite the fact that the only weapon available to
the evening's speaker was the power of the pen, the worldwide media
attention the confrontation might create, it was quite clear that the
zealots were willing to risk their lives to protect the whales. In
this particular instance, the speaker told the audience, the whale
hunters relented, but he was quick to add that on a daily basis confrontations
like these were needed all around the world in order to protect whales.
Then the speaker asked for financial contributions and volunteers who
were willing to risk their lives to join the cause.
I couldn't really tell who gave or how much, or who
if anyone signed up, but my best guess is that while many in the audience
admired the speaker and supported his cause, at most the night yielded
a few dollars and no volunteers.
The setting where this presentation took place was
an auditorium on a university campus in San Diego almost 25 years ago.
Two weeks earlier I had been in San Ignacio Lagoon, one of a series
of lagoons along the Pacific coast of Mexico's Baja peninsula where
California gray whales go each winter to calve and mate. Once hunted
to the point of near-extinction, California gray whales have made an
impressive comeback. Each year thousands of these filter-feeding behemoths
migrate from their feeding grounds in Alaska's Bering Sea to the waters
off Baja. Without fail, the sight of these magnificent whales thrills
whale watchers from all over the world who come to witness the migration.
I had seen gray whales in the waters of southern
California, but that was my first trip to the lagoons. We had arrived
around midnight on a windless night. I walked down to the water's edge
with my pal Howard Hall, and to our amazement we could hear the loud "whooshes" the
whales made as they inhaled and exhaled. The sounds were so clear and
so loud we would have sworn the whales were only a few feet off the
beach. I couldn't wait until daybreak.
The next morning, we got up with the sun. To my amazement,
the lagoon was huge. Even though I could still hear the blows quite
clearly, the closest whale was nowhere close to shore. In some ways
I was disappointed, but I was excited about being in such a vast and
pristine wilderness. For the next week Howard and I enjoyed sights
of mothers and calves frolicking on the surface, while males battled
each other for the right to court the females. We watched pelicans,
frigate birds and ospreys on the surface when the wind blew and the
whales slipped out of sight. It was hard to imagine a setting that
felt more like a wilderness, an area less impacted by humankind.
Fast-Forward
A quarter-century later, the world is a very different
place. As they have for thousands of years, California gray whales
still make an annual trek to the lagoons of Baja. But at the turn of
the millennium, the wilderness is being invaded by a corporate giant
that sees its riches not as whales and wilderness, but as money to
be made from salt taken from the sea.
In a joint venture with the Mexican government, the
Japanese-based Mitsubishi Corporation is attempting to develop a massive
industrial saltworks next to San Ignacio Lagoon. If the plans go forward,
the salt will be extracted from the sea and exported around the world,
with Japan being a primary market. A variety of environmental groups,
including the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International
Fund for Animal Welfare, are outraged by the environmental threat to
this, the last undisturbed gray whale nursery in the world.
"Don't Buy It!"
 Today,
the response of the environmental groups is far more sophisticated
than it was 25 years ago. Instead of depending upon the courage and
commitment of a few people, environmental organizations have instituted
a worldwide campaign intended to hit the corporate giant where it hurts
the most, directly in its pocketbook. The NRDC and the International
Fund for Animal Welfare have launched the "Mitsubishi. Don't Buy
It!" campaign aimed at forcing the multinational giant to abandon
its plans by using the economic power of consumers.
The message of the multimedia campaign is for consumers
worldwide not to purchase Mitsubishi-made automobiles, televisions
and other products until the company pays heed to the worldwide outcry
against the saltworks plan. The campaign is being waged through mailings,
advertisements in movie theaters, on billboards, via the Internet and
on television.
Environmentalists opposing Mitsubishi's efforts point
out that the salt factory would convert 116 square miles/300 sq. km
of San Ignacio Lagoon's tidal flats into a wasteland of evaporation
ponds, supplied by giant engines which will pump 6,000 gallons/23,000
l of water per second out of the lagoon. They fear that the reduced
salinity of the water will greatly threaten the survival of many gray
whale calves. In addition, scientific calculations claim that the ponds
would produce 1 billion gallons/3,800,000,000 l of deadly brine waste
each year, and many oceangoing tankers will dock at a mile-long pier,
introducing the risk of commercial pollutants and potential oil spills
to the delicate ecosystems.
Scientific Support
A collection of 34 prominent scientists, including
whale authority Roger Payne, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Stephen Jay Gould, Sir
Andrew Huxley, Edward O. Wilson and nine Nobel laureates, stated that
the saltworks plan poses "an unacceptable risk" to the lagoon's
biological resources, maintaining that the nursery area is critical
to the survival of California gray whales.
Last summer, with the support of these and other
scientists, international parliamentarians passed a resolution requesting
that Mitsubishi abandon its plans to develop what would become the
world's largest salt factory. In addition, close to 1 million people
from many nations have sent letters of protest. (In the September 1997
issue, Dive Training presented an overview of the developing conflict.)
To date, Mitsubishi's response has been to ignore
world and scientific opinion, and to step up a public relations campaign
intended to discredit its opposition. It is important to note that
Mitsubishi is not acting alone. The Mexican Ministry of Trade is a
partner in the project.
California gray whales are no longer recognized as
an endangered species, having made a remarkable comeback. This is both
the good and the bad news. The good news is that the threatened status
indicates a lesser immediate threat of extinction. The bad news is
that the designation of "threatened," as opposed to "endangered," works
against the whales in this instance because it appears potentially
easier for the salt factory developers to push their cause through
the Mexican court system.
Currently, Mitsubishi operates a saltworks in Guerrero
Negro, not far from San Ignacio. Scientists working for Mitsubishi
claim that this operation has not had any negative impact on the environment,
and that the scenario will be the same in San Ignacio. Astonishingly,
this claim was first made only a matter of days after a study conducted
by Mexico's Attorney General for the Environment revealed close to
300 violations of 22 laws at the facility. The violations included
one incident that led to the deaths of 94 sea turtles due to the spillage
of toxic brine wastes. All species of sea turtles are endangered. The
study was done only after local fishermen tipped off Mexico's Attorney
general for the Environment.
Other scientific reports show that the Guerrero Negro
saltworks has disrupted gray whale migration patterns, dumped combustible
fluids and batteries into the water, and destroyed vital bird nesting
habitat. The fight for world opinion centers around which scientists
seem most credible and whether or not the environmentalist groups are
able to gain sufficient public support around the world.
United Nations Support
In addition to the "Don't Buy It!" campaign,
the United Nations World Heritage Committee has been petitioned by
the protectionists to enter the fray. The committee has been asked
to place San Ignacio Lagoon on the list of World Heritage Sites "In
Danger." The "In Danger" designation would further turn
up the heat on Mitsubishi and stall its plans. The lagoon is already
part of a larger whale sanctuary that has been designated as a World
Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve. The issue of "In
Danger" status is now being studied by committee representatives.
Perhaps the argument for preserving San Ignacio Lagoon
and avoiding the risks introduced by establishing what is potentially
the world's largest saltworks was best expressed by Homero Aridjis,
a member of the Group of 100, an organization of activists and artists
who are among the most vocal protectors of Mexico's environment. After
being asked his thoughts about comments made by representatives from
Mitsubishi, in which they claimed there was nothing special about San
Ignacio Lagoon, he said:
"If you are a lover of nature and you are in
Laguna San Ignacio and see the whales, and look out at the beauty of
the lagoon, you experience the same emotion as a lover of art does
in the Sistine Chapel looking at Michelangelo's frescoes. It arouses
a similar spiritual emotion. Now, if you talk to people in the Western
world about destroying the Sistine Chapel, they will tell you that
this is a madness, a kind of barbarism.
"When you experience the beauty of San Ignacio
Lagoon, you begin to see its destruction in that lightÉ. There are
certain things in life for which there is simply no possible trade-off.
For example, you cannot exchange the value of the gray whales for a
commodity as trivial as industrial salt to be used in Japan's factories
and on its roads. For a symbol as powerful as the gray whale, that
is simply an unacceptable sacrifice. We must preserve them as they
are."
Send an e-mail letter to: Ambassador Koichirio Matsuura,
President, United Nations World Heritage Committee (wh-info@unesco.org)
requesting that the Whale Sanctuary be designated as a World Heritage
Site "In Danger," a designation critical to the preservation
of a saltworks-free lagoon.
For More Info...
Log on to The National Resources Defense Council's
Web site at www.nrdc.org. |
