PHOTOS BY RICHARD SOBOL/IFAW



 EACH WINTER FOR THOUSANDS of years, gray whales have migrated from the Arctic to the coastal lagoons of western Baja California Sur. There, in the warm salty waters, remote and secluded, they breed, calve, and prepare their young for the journey back to the Bering and Chukchi Seas. This population of the Pacific gray whale, the last of the magnificent gray whale species that once also inhabited the western Pacific and the northern Atlantic, recently completed one of the most remarkable recoveries on record. In 1994, more than 40 years after Mexico and the United States agreed to ban commercial whaling, the Pacific gray whale was removed from the federal endangered species list; returning from the brink of extinction, it now numbers over 22,000.
As the whale has recovered, however, its historic Baja calving habitat has been placed increasingly at risk. At Guerrero Negro and Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon's Lagoon), urban spawl and a massive salt manufacturing facility are long established; at Bahía Magdalena, phosphate mining continues, and massive resort development, with a major airport, is planned. Today only one Baja lagoon--Laguna San Ignacio, 500 miles south of San Diego--remains in a virtually pristine condition. The gray whale and 150 different waterfowl species coexist here among the mangroves with fishing cooperatives and with a growing but strictly regulated ecotourism industry whose viability is inextricably intertwined with the whales' survival and recovery.
Since the late 1970s, Laguna San Ignacio has become known as the home of the "friendly gray whale," a gentle and playful descendant of the "devil fish" that turned on the harpoon boats of whalers and smashed them with their massive flukes. (Adults weigh over 40 tons and are up to 45 feet long; their tongues can weigh 3,000 pounds.) Now, in the lagoon's protected confines, the whales' fear of the harpoon has been replaced by curiosity, by countless playful interactions with tourists, and by mutual trust and affection.
The need to protect Laguna San Ignacio has long been recognized. In 1954, Mexico designated it a gray whale sanctuary and banned whaling. In 1979, the federal government declared the lagoon to be a "refuge for pregnant whales and calves, as well as a marine tourism reserve." In 1988, Mexico's President Carlos Salinas included Laguna San Ignacio in establishing El Vizcaíno Desert Biosphere Reserve, the largest protected area in Latin America, equal in size to the state of New Hampshire. That same year, UNESCO designated the lagoon a World Heritage Site.
But this special place is also the site proposed in 1994 by Mitsubishi Corporation, together with Mexico, for construction of the world's largest salt manufacturing plant. Through a jointly owned subsidiary, Exportadora de Sal, S.A. ("ESSA"), Mitsubishi wants to build an evaporation facility that would produce an estimated 7.1 million tons per year of salt for use in the manufacture of chemicals, primarily in Japan. Noisy diesel pumps would be installed on the lagoon to extract 462 million metric tons of water a year (6,600 gallons per second), possibly reducing the lagoon's salinity and affecting the buoyancy and insulation it provides to the whales.
If the plan goes through, an estimated 116 square miles of evaporation ponds will be diked and bulldozed into the landscape, disturbing wetlands, fisheries crucial to the local human communities, and the habitats of rare or endangered terrestrial species. A mile-long concrete pier will be constructed to receive tankers carrying diesel fuel and oil and tankers exporting the salt. The surrounding fishing communities would be swallowed up by the urban sprawl that inevitably accompanies industrial development--as has already occurred at ESSA's Guerrero Negro salt works. The local culture sustained by fishing will be a thing of the past.
In June 1994, ESSA submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment that dismissed the potential impacts to the gray whale in 23 lines and summarily discounted the potential adverse effects on the lagoon ecology. Six months later, after a fierce opposition campaign headed by Mexico's leading environmental group, El Grupo de los Cien (The Group of 100), ESSA's application for project approval was rejected by Mexico's National Ecology Institute (INE), part of the newly created Ministry of Fisheries, Natural Resources, and Environment (SEMARNAP). INE found that a new Environmental Impact Assessment is required. In February 1996, the environmental review process began again, this time with the assistance of an international panel of scientists appointed by SEMARNAP.
Mexico's commitment to protecting this unique natural area is indicated by the designation of the lagoon as a sanctuary and a biological reserve, as well as by the rejection of ESSA's original environmental impact assessment. SEMARNAP Director Julia Carabias Lillo is well regarded by conservationists inside and outside Mexico. Yet the country is in the throes of economic and political turmoil, and the pressures to approve the project are powerful. As the environmental review process moves forward, project opponents fear the government's commitment to the sanctuary may be undermined.
To Mitsubishi, the lagoon's uniqueness has not proved a compelling reason to look elsewhere for salt. The company contends that the whales will not be jeopardized. The Natural Resources Defense Council has met repeatedly with Mitsubishi executives to urge that they find another site, but they have refused to do so. Project opponents are now considering economic and political incentives to persuade Mitsubishi to change its mind. There are a lot of places in the world to make salt--Mitsubishi concedes that--but there is only one undisturbed place remaining where the gray whale can breed. The fate of Laguna San Ignacio--and the fate of the Pacific gray whale--will depend on what we can do, individually and collectively, to defend them.

Joel R. Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles, heads NRDC's Southern California Coastal Ecosystem Project. For more information on this controversy, see www.nrdc.org

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