Dolphins lose

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Dolphins lose to Vanuatu in tuna battle

By David North

VANUATU won and dolphins lost the latest battle between the tuna industry and the environmentalists.

This time the scene of the decision making was Geneva, Switzerland, where an international trade agency overruled an earlier vote by the United States Congress. The Congress had barred from the lush American tuna market all tuna caught by fleets that kill more dolphins than the more careful US fleet, so tuna caught by boats carrying the flags of Mexico, Venezuela and Vanuatu could not enter the US.

Recently US tuna packers, notably HJ. Heinz with its Starkist brand packed in American Samoa, have avoided buying fish from purse seiners who work the Eastern Tropical Pacific, where tuna are usually found swim

ming below schools of dolphin. Despite

the efforts of the crews, dolphins are often killed when the seines are closed on the tuna.

American environmental organis ations, aware that foreign-packed tuna often was caught by ships fishing “on dolphin” managed to get the congress to bar such fish from the US market.

The decision to overrule the Con gress came from the General Agree ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) the international body housed in Geneva. GATT ruled that the US could not impose its environmental standards in this way because this was intervening in the internal affairs of another nation, such as Vanuatu.

The Bush Administration now finds itself in an interesting pickle. On the one hand, it does not like any interna tional body telling it what to do, but on the other it has limited time for the environmentalists and even less for dolphins. But since the Administration wants to work with GATT on other issues, and since it usually identifies with other nation’s elites (such as the President of Mexico who is anti dolphin on this issue) it will probably try to get the Democratic Congress to reverse its position.

That this may benefit Vanuatu, and the handful of Vanuatu-flagged tuna boats working the Eastern Tropical Pacific, is fortuitous; Vanuatu’s feelings on this are of small moment to Washington. The GATT decision is not self-enforcing, and it may be months or years before tuna caught “on dolphin” is allowed into US grocery stores. □