by Nathan LaBudde and Mark J. Palmer
On August 15, after a bruising and contentious two-year battle, President Clinton signed compromise dolphin legislation. Though Earth Island Institute (EII) and the 85-member Dolphin Safe/Fair Trade Campaign defeated the worst aspects of the original "dolphin death act," the compromise measure still clouds the future of thousands of dolphins. The fight now shifts from the halls of Congress to the aisles of your neighborhood supermarket.
The new law (Public Law 105-42) lifts tuna embargoes against Mexico, Venezuela and Vanuatu, whose tuna fleets still fish for yellowfin tuna largely by chasing, injuring and netting dolphins to catch the tuna, which swim beneath dolphin schools. These embargoes were achieved through historic legal victories by EII in 1989 and 1991 and have been instrumental in reducing dolphin deaths.
The good news is that the new law maintains the current strong standards for "dolphin safe" tuna. Dolphin-deadly tuna may again be sold on the US market, but it cannot be labeled "dolphin safe." However - and this is the catch - the Secretary of Commerce could weaken labeling standards, allowing tuna caught by chasing, harassing and injuring dolphins to be labeled "dolphin safe."
Large-scale disaster was averted by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a longtime dolphin crusader and co-author of the original 1990 Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act. Boxer made good on her filibuster threat against the dolphin death act, attracting a barrage of counterattacks from the Clinton administration and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ).
The Mexican government's heavy lobbying and vehement objections to White House involvement into negotiations finally gave way to a compromise. Supported by senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Robert Smith (R-NH), Boxer secured changes to the legislation to block the immediate weakening of dolphin-safe tuna label standards.
They also added a provision allowing tuna companies and environmentalists to develop alternative dolphin-safe labels should the current federal standards be replaced.
The compromise legislation also specifies efforts to reduce the bycatch of nontarget species such as sharks, billfish, and sea turtles - a point Earth Island raised repeatedly in its opposition to the original dolphin death act, which ignored the issue completely.
"Our job now is to make sure that any dolphin-unsafe tuna leaking into US markets sits unsold and that US and foreign companies stick to their dolphin-safe pledges," says EII Executive Director, David Phillips.
The new law requires the US Secretary of Commerce to make a preliminary finding, by March 31, 1999, of tuna fishing's impacts on dolphins. The finding will be based on the first year of a National Marine Fisheries Service study of the dolphin populations most depleted by tuna purse seine fishing in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP).
If the Secretary finds that these populations suffer no "significant adverse impacts," then weaker dolphin-safe standards (first proposed in the dolphin death act) would go into effect - allowing tuna caught by chasing, capturing, and netting dolphins to be labeled dolphin safe. If, however, the finding indicates that tuna fishing does indeed cause "significant adverse impacts" on depleted dolphin populations, the strong dolphin-safe label standards for tuna will remain undisturbed.
"We cannot allow a whitewash study to result in the gutting of the dolphin-safe label," warns Phillips. "A one-year study of dolphin populations cannot possibly gather enough conclusive data to prove year-to-year changes, yet this fishing method is responsible for 7 million dolphin deaths during the past four decades and is clearly not safe for dolphins. We will fight any backdoor label change which puts dolphin-deadly tuna on US supermarket shelves with a fraudulent dolphin-safe label."
Recent surveys conducted by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the rubber-stamping international treaty organization that condones dolphin-deadly purse seine fishing, revealed that several depleted dolphin populations are failing to show any signs of recovery and in fact continue to decline. This comes despite reductions in annual dolphin deaths resulting from tuna fishing from 133,000 in 1986 to 3,000 in 1996. With such a dramatic drop in observed dolphin deaths and with a decline in tuna boats fishing above dolphins in the ETP, why are dolphin populations not increasing?
Many scientists and environmental groups believe that the answer lies in practices of using speedboats to chase dolphins to exhaustion, corralling dolphins with explosives, and repeatedly netting and injuring dolphins. It is not only cruel to individuals, but destroys their social structure and causes unobserved mortality through injuries and physiological stress.
The tuna boycott of the late 1980s and the resulting landmark dolphin-safe policies of major tuna companies are in danger of falling victim to the environmental scourge of the late 1990s: international free trade and the weakening of US environmental standards to meet the needs of foreign trading partners. The Clinton administration, by championing the Mexican tuna lobby-authored dolphin death act, hoped to avoid an embarrassing legal challenge by Mexico and defeat before the World Trade Organization.
The provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act which kept dolphin-deadly Mexican tuna off supermarket shelves are gone. The Clinton administration's overt efforts spearheaded by Vice President Gore to weaken the popular dolphin-protection laws could open the floodgates to similar trade actions against other health and environmental standards. If there was any question about the administration's priorities, this case makes it clear that trade reigns supreme over our environmental protection.
The tuna/dolphin fight is far from over. Earth Island's International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) is stepping up efforts to identify sources of dolphin-deadly tuna before it reaches US markets. IMMP is also pressing tuna companies, importers and retailers around the world to renew their 1990 pledges to buy and sell only truly dolphin-safe tuna.
The citizens of the US will soon exercise that most inalienable of rights, freedom of choice. States Phillips: "No law passed by Congress can make American consumers buy dolphin-deadly tuna."
What You Can Do: Watch for canned tuna not bearing the "dolphin safe" label and encourage your grocer not to stock it. To learn which tuna brands are 100 percent safe, contact IMMP, 300 Broadway No. 28, San Francisco, CA 94133, (415) 788-3666, marinemammal@igc.apc.org.
Dolphin Death Act Denied, but More Battles to Come