Green triumph in shades of grey

Even though the grey whales were not in any danger, environmental forces warned of their impending doom to mount an international campaign

Whale-watchers get up close and personal with a grey whale in Laguna San Ignacio. (PHOTO: JAMES HRYNYSHN)

The grey whales that pass by Vancouver Island twice each year on their annual migration are drawn each winter to the lagoons of Baja, California, by the area's unique geography and climate. There they give birth, nurse and mate, safe from the killer whales that prowl the offshore depths. The same elements that formed the lagoons - mountain rainshadows, strong winds and sprawling plains - also draw transnational executives who see an ideal location for a salt-evaporation industrial park.

If it sounds like a recipe for conflict, it is -- or was, until a few weeks ago, when Mitsubishi Corporation. and the Mexican government cancelled their plans for a $120-million saltworks at Laguna San Ignacio, an isolated bay about half-way down the Baja peninsula. The project would improve the efficiency of their existing joint venture at nearby Guerrero Negro, where Exportadora del Sal S.A. (ESSA) has been extracting salt for more than 40 years, by sharing infrastructure costs while increasing production.

But the global environmental movement was enraged at the thought of development in the heart of what is, after all, a whale nursery, and the only one not yet marred by development.

The whale advocates got their way, after a five-year-campaign, due in no small part to the directors of 15 North American mutual funds, who threatened last October to boycott Mitsubishi stocks if the project's plug wasn't pulled.

The truth is, there is no evidence the whales were ever threatened by the proposed saltworks. In the lagoons of Guerrero Negro, the whales go about their business as if nothing is amiss. They ignore the diesel engines that pump water into the holding ponds day and night (and can be heard more than three kilometres away) and steer clear of the barges that ferry evaporated salt crystals to a shipping port on a nearby island 20 hours out of every 24.

What's more, the whales no longer have to deal with the leftover brine, which is high in magnesium and other toxins. As company economist and tour guide Pedro Peña, proudly boasts, the plant has been storing the brine waste for 10 years now, and is actively searching for a clean method of getting rid of it.

ESSA tour guide Pedro Pena discusses the global salt market with a group of Canadian university students at the Guerrero Negro saltworks. (PHOTO: JAMES HRYNYSHN)

Four decades ago, says Peña, no more than 300 grey whales showed up each winter in the lagoons that surround Guerrero Negro. Biologists confirm his figure, and report that, today, about 1,800 show up each winter. Dozens of whale-watching boats take to the waters every day in the winter months, as if to prove whales and industrials can get along.

Hunted to the brink of extinction in the late 1800s, the grey whales are on the rebound, and may have reached a carrying capacity of 26,000. Salt extraction, it would seem, hasn't done them much harm. ESSA even added a whale to its corporate logo as part of a propaganda campaign to win the support of the people of San Ignacio, along with promises of new schools, roads and garbage disposal.

But the whales also served as poster children for the international campaign against the project. There they were more effective. The Natural Resources Defence Council, which led the campaign along with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, calls the victory one of "monumental proportions," and it may be right. But why focus on the whales or even oppose the project in the first place?

It turns out that Laguna San Ignacio is worth preserving, from both an ecological and a socio-economic point of view. More than 300 other species of birds, mammals and fish can be found there, including peregrine falcons, sea turtles and rare pronghorned antelope. The lagoon is part of the Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, and the U.N. calls it a World Heritage Site.

And then there's San Ignacio's fishermen, who saw what happened to the fishing industry in Guerrero Negro after ESSA set up shop. For all intents and purposes, there is no legal fishing industry today in Guerrero Negro. "When we wrote about the project, all our fears were about the fisheries," says Raul Gorgona, a member of a San Ignacio fishing co-operative who helps run a whale-watching business in the winter. "We never said anything about the whales."

It seems doubtful the environmentalists who first identified the need to save Laguna San Ignacio ever believed the whales were at risk. But they knew that the whales would appeal to donors better than would antelopes or, even worse, scallop fishermen. They convinced Pierce Brosnan and Glenn Glose to bring their children whale-watching, and the letters of protest poured in to Mitsubishi -- more than 700,000, according to the NRDC.

It is true that Laguna San Ignacio is, as IFAW lamented, "the last untouched place on earth where grey whales go to give birth to and nurse their young." But it is perhaps more relevant that Laguna San Ignacio is simply one of the last untouched places on earth. That should be enough, but it isn't. Instead, it took a dishonest campaign to do the trick. One can only hope the ends justify the means.

Freelance science writer James Hrynyshyn is studying marine biology at the University of British Columbia.

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