Past hour: Mexican shrimp hit. I block it

Mexico City

The United States confirmed the withdrawal of certification for Mexico in shrimp hunting due to the inappropriate use of sea turtle exclusion devices known as TEDs by the Naval Fleet.

The ban on Mexican shrimp that takes effect from Friday, April 30, was announced by the Federal Register in Public Notice No. 11419 by the State Department.

The document states that “the ministry has suspended Mexico’s certification because its sea turtle protection program is no longer comparable to that of the United States.”

In this way, Mexico is prohibited from exporting wild shrimp to the United States, which annually yields a foreign currency for our country of about $ 257 million.

The Mexican shrimp certification withdrawal is the result of four inspection visits by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within two years to Campeche, Mazatlan, Puerto Chiapas, Puerto Juarez, Puerto Penasco, Salina Cruz, San Blas and Tampico, in which it found serious irregularities in the use of TEDs.

Since the end of 2018, Konabska has disappeared the special group of federal officials assigned throughout the year to train ship crews in the correct use of sea turtle exclusion devices.

The initiative was resumed until the beginning of April 2021, when the ban was already coming, in order to look for the possibility of a comparison with Mexico before the start of the season in September.

Countries authorized to export shrimp to the United States based on their marine turtle protection programs are: Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama and Suriname.

The leaflet warns that “for non-listed countries, economies and fisheries, only prawns harvested from aquaculture are eligible to enter the United States.”

* B