Panama city played
host early October to 6 Latin
American nations, these nations sought to adopt a new
code of conduct for their
tuna fishing fleets that would
drastically reduce the number of dolphins killed, and
persuade the us Congress to
lift a ban againt tuna imports
from their countries. The six
nations - Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador and Panama have been hard hit ever since
the us Congress passed a
Marine Marnmals Protection
Act in 1988, and decreed an
embargo in 1990 against
tuna imports from countries
that trapped dolphins in the
process of fishing for tuna.
The new agreement,
which is expected to be
translated into a full fledged
international treaty later this
year, has won plaudits from
environmental groups. Says
David Schou, a World Wide
Fund for Nature spokesperson, "If there were a strong,
binding, permanent international regime that guaranteed the continued protection of dolphins and their
eco-system, it would then be
appropriate for the us to lift
its embargo against tuna
imports."
However David Phillips,
a campaigner against dolphin killings in the 1980s
fears dolphin deaths could
rise, and criticises the agreement's definition of "dolphin-safe products."
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