As Mexico marks conservation day, advocates say it takes too long to list vulnerable species

Mexico’s Endangered Species List Fails to Protect Vulnerable Species

MEXICO CITY — Residents of Mexico‘s Caribbean reef island of Banco Chinchorro near Belize have hunted the meat and salmon-pink shells of queen conch for generations. As populations have shrunk in recent decades, Mexico has enforced limits and bans on catching the shellfish.

The species has continued to decline despite these measures, which included a blanket five-year ban on catches in 2012. Still, the queen conch is one of many vulnerable species not included on Mexico’s national endangered species list.

As Mexico’s environment agency celebrates the country’s biodiversity during Monday’s national conservation day, conservationists say the government’s own registry for endangered species is too short and too slow to update.

Despite a legal requirement to review and update the list at least every three years, there have been no updates since August 2019. In the meantime, species like the queen conch have lacked federal environmental protection and moved steadily toward extinction.

The Mexican environment department did not respond to emails and text messages asking why there had not been any updates to the list since 2019.

Officials accept proposals to list species only during set periods for public comment. That system is opaque and slow, said Alejandro Olivera, a marine biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We shouldn’t have to wait until the government requests for new listings, because species can go extinct or populations can recover from one year to another,” Olivera said from La Paz, on the Gulf of California.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, by comparison, accepts submissions on a rolling basis, and has to make an initial response within 90 days. It’s still not perfect, Olivera said, but better than a system of submission windows.

“Even if you have the hard data, the scientific information to prove that one species is really endangered, the process is not open,” Olivera said. “You can’t submit the proposal just out of the blue.”

The Mexican government most recently opened a comment window in April 2021, when the Center for Biological Diversity submitted a proposal to list the queen conch, but the group never heard back.

One of the experts convened to adjudicate those proposals was Angélica Cervantes Maldonado, a plant biology professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. She acknowledged that it has taken much longer than the mandated three-year period to update the list.

“I know the situation of species is complicated and can deteriorate very quickly, but unfortunately here the regulatory process is much slower,” she said, adding that the department expects to publish updates around April.

Mexico’s current list was written into law in 2010, and has been updated three times since then, once to make it shorter.

While some species like the queen conch aren’t federally protected at all, many more are listed but with a far lesser degree of danger than the science suggests, said Olivera.

The population of elkhorn coral, for example, another Caribbean species, with large, ochre branches growing six feet tall, has declined 97% over the past four decades, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, lists elkhorn coral as critically endangered, the last step before extinction. Meanwhile elkhorn coral has the lowest level of endangerment on Mexico’s list, despite scientists’ requests to review its classification for at least five years.

Compared to the IUCN, last updated in 2022, the Mexican government lists 250 fewer species as needing some kind of protection, and most fall under the lowest risk category. In particular, Mexico lists 535 species as endangered, its worst risk rating,

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 14: Life Below Water – The article discusses the decline of species such as the queen conch and elkhorn coral, highlighting the need for conservation and protection of marine biodiversity.
• SDG 15: Life on Land – The article mentions the need to update Mexico’s list of endangered species to ensure the protection of land-based species.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• SDG 14.1: By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, particularly from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution – The article emphasizes the need for conservation measures to protect vulnerable marine species like the queen conch.
• SDG 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity, and protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species – The article highlights the slow process of updating Mexico’s list of endangered species, which puts vulnerable species at risk of extinction.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Indicator for SDG 14.1: Proportion of coastal and marine areas that are protected – The article mentions Mexico’s national endangered species list, which plays a role in determining the protection status of species.
• Indicator for SDG 15.5: Number of species included in the national list of threatened species – The article discusses the need to update Mexico’s list of endangered species and compares it to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) list.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: abcnews.go.com

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