MEXICO

-- The eastern Pacific is now teeming with dolphins, thanks to an American embargo against the tuna. The six-year embargo forced fisherfolks in Ensenada, Mexico, and other eastern Pacific ports to take steps to end the slaughter of dolphins while harvesting tuna. Hundreds of dolphins used to get snared and killed in the nets of tuna boats. As a result of the embargo, fisherfolk devised better ways of catching tuna which has led to a stunning drop in dolphin mortality in the eastern Pacific -- from 133,000 in 1986 to 3,274 last year.

The us is now considering a legislation backed by scientists that would lift the embargo and give a fresh lease of life to countries from Mexico to Ecuador, whose tuna industries have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. But the proposed legislation has split the environmental community into two groups. Organisations like Greenpeace, the Environmental Defence Fund and three other mainstream groups have supported the lifting of the ban. But the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and some other groups have described the proposal as a sellout and 'dolphin death bill'.