Mexico, DiCaprio, Slim team up to help endangered porpoise

The agreement struck by President Enrique Pena Nieto, multibillionaire telecoms magnate Carlos Slim and DiCaprio sets the goal of ending gillnet use in the upper Gulf and makes permanent an earlier temporary ban.

Because illegal traders pay thousands of dollars per kilogram of the swim bladders, efforts to curb totoaba fishing have been ineffective and the number of surviving vaquitas has fallen rapidly.

The agreement will be backed by both the Carlos Slim Foundation and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which have committed to helping fund local development and non-gillnet fishing options to try to offset the economic impact of the bans.