Collaboration is Key to Conservation

Something that we have noticed here at Wild Lens on many of the conservation projects that we’ve been involved with is a lack of cohesiveness and collaboration amongst different groups working on the same issue.  While there have certainly been some really fantastic and beneficial collaborative efforts implemented to help address the vaquita issue, there have also been some troubling and counterproductive disagreements.

The most fruitful collaborations have been between NGOs and the local community.  Many of the organizations involved in vaquita conservation recognized right away the importance of establishing collaborative relationships with community members, and this has led to groups of local fisherman working closely with the World Wildlife Fund, Museo de la Ballena, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, CEDO, and others.  Without these partnerships the situation would undeniable be worse.

The Sea Shepherd crew working in the Northern Gulf of California.

The Sea Shepherd crew working in the Northern Gulf of California.

Where collaborative relationships have been lacking is at the intersection between the various different approaches that I’ve laid out in the previous five blog posts towards solving the problem.  This is not to say that collaboration is nonexistent – most key players in the vaquita issue seem to be aware of what others are doing – but there is no cohesiveness to these various approaches.  Often fellow filmmaker Sean Bogle and myself have been put in the situation of connecting various players and sharing updates about the efforts of other organizations.

The closest thing to a central group focused solely on vaquita conservation is the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), which makes recommendations to the Mexican government for conservation actions to protect the vaquita.  But this group is mainly focused on scientific research, and although they recognize the importance of social science and economics, they’re recommendations don’t always reflect the importance of these alternative approaches towards addressing the issue.

Presentation given during the 2016 CIRVA meeting.

Presentation given during the 2016 CIRVA meeting.

The reality is that there are many things that need to happen to save the vaquita, they all need to happen in a coordinated fashion, and they need to have been implemented yesterday.  Just about every organization and individual involved in the issue would agree with this statement, and I think there would be a willingness for everyone to work together in a coordinated fashion if it wasn’t for one looming obstacle.  The complicated relationship between Mexico’s drug cartels and the Mexican government.

The one area where a lack of collaboration and cohesion is having the most dramatic negative effect is within the Mexican government itself.  We know that there are honest players within the government who desperately want to take meaningful action to save the vaquita, but we also know that there are high level government officials getting paid off by the cartels to undermine conservation efforts and protect the illegal totoaba fishery.  This qualifies as something more significant than a simple lack of cohesion to be honest – it’s a war that’s been going on within Mexico’s government for decades. Now, in addition to illegal drug trafficking, this war involves wildlife crime and the looming extinction of Mexico’s only endemic marine mammal.