Mexico faces sanctions for not protecting endangered porpoise. Mexico City, Mexico acknowledged Saturday at faces sanctions from the international wildlife body known as Sites, for not doing enough to protect the Vecuida Marina, a small porpoise that is the world's most endangered marine mammal. The sanctions have not yet been announced, but they could make it difficult for Mexico to export some regulated animal and plant products like crocodile or snake skins, orchids, and cactuses. Commercial seafood species, like shrimp, would not be affected, but the ruling sets of precedent and some groups are pushing for seafood import bans. While no one relishes economically painful sanctions, all other efforts, to prompt Mexico to say the Vecuida have failed, said Sarah Omen, international program director at the center for biological diversity. We hope these strong measures wake up the Mexican government. Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said in a statement that Sites had ruled that Mexico's protection plan for the Vecuida was insufficient. Studies estimate there may be as few as eight Vecuidas remaining in the Gulf of California, the only place they exist and where they often become entangled in illegal gill nets and drown. The Foreign Relations Department said Sites had ruled the protection plan inadequate and said the full ruling and possible sanctions will be officially announced next week. The department called the ruling an unequal treatment of our country because it did not take into account the many and exhaustive actions that have been taken. Mexico recently submitted a revised protection plan to Sites after the body rejected an earlier version. Mexico's planned lists establishing alternative fishing techniques to gill net fishing as one its top priorities. But in reality, the government's protection efforts have been uneven, at best, and face often violent opposition from local fishermen. The administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez has largely refused to spend money to compensate fishermen for staying out of the Vecuida refuge and to stop using gill nets. The nets are said illegally to catch totoaba, a fish who swim bladders are a delicacy in China worth thousands of dollars per pound. The government has also sunk concrete blocks with hooks to snare illegal nets in the last bit of the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, where the Vecuidas have been seen. The activist group C. Shepard, which has joined the Mexican Navy in patrols to deter the fishermen and to help destroy gill nets, says the efforts have successfully reduced the gill net fishing. But with so few Vecuidas remaining, that may not be enough. Moreover, experts say the Mexican government has not spent the money needed to train and compensate fishermen for using alternate fishing techniques such as nets or lines that won't trap Vecuidas. There is no alternative fishing gear being offered, said Lorenzo Rojas, a marine biologist who has headed the International Committee to save the Vecuida. The fisheries authorities have been notable for their absence, leaving the effort to change practices up to civic groups and fishermen. The Mexican government banned the use of gill nets in the area in 2017, with the understanding it would provide support payments and training on using less dangerous fishing methods. Sites is the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, signed by 184 countries. It regulates trade and protection for protected species.