Son. Mexico
In September 2025, Nuestro Futuro AC, along with allied organizations and individuals, filed an injunction in Sonora on behalf of the whales that inhabit, migrate, and reproduce in the Gulf of California. This unprecedented action in Mexico seeks to have the courts recognize whales as subjects of rights and, consequently, grant enhanced legal protection to their habitat. The lawsuit was accepted by a federal judge, allowing the whales to formally become plaintiffs in the proceedings.
The litigation primarily targets the environmental permits granted to the Saguaro LNG Project, located in Puerto Libertad, Sonora, which aims to produce and export liquefied natural gas to Asian markets. Environmental concerns stem from, among other factors, the increased traffic of large LNG carriers in the Gulf of California, as well as underwater noise, the risk of collisions, disruption of migratory routes, damage to feeding and breeding grounds, greenhouse gas emissions, and cumulative impacts on a highly biodiverse ecosystem. The lawsuit questions whether the permits adequately considered these impacts on the marine ecosystem.
One of the central objectives is for the Gulf of California to be recognized as a Critical Habitat, a designation provided for in the General Wildlife Law that can offer enhanced protection to areas essential for the reproduction, feeding, migration, and survival of endangered species. Nuestro Futuro maintains that this declaration will protect not only whales, but also all the species and ecological processes that depend on the Gulf.
In mid-March 2026, the court granted the whales a permanent injunction, ordering the responsible authorities to suspend and refrain from allowing access to the Gulf of California for LNG tankers associated with the Saguaro Project while the case is being resolved. The organization itself has presented this decision as a historic victory for the whales' legal defense.
The ruling is particularly interesting because it incorporates a preventive and precautionary logic: faced with the possibility of serious or irreversible damage to a particularly vulnerable ecosystem and species, the activity that could cause such damage is temporarily restricted while the matter is being investigated. The significance of the case has even been highlighted in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation's news summary.
The case of the whales in the Gulf of California, promoted by Nuestro Futuro AC, constitutes an emerging precedent of ecocentric litigation in Mexico.
For the first time, a legal action for protection of constitutional rights was filed on behalf of whales, seeking their recognition as subjects of rights and challenging the environmental permits for the Saguaro LNG Project. The litigation articulates the protection of species, the defense of the ecosystem, the precautionary principle, and opposition to the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. Its significance transcends the protection of cetaceans, as it proposes a transformation of traditional categories within Mexican environmental law: shifting from conceiving of nature as an object of state protection to recognizing the possibility that other life forms may have their own legal standing.
The definitive suspension that temporarily prevents the entry of LNG carriers into the Gulf of California while the trial is resolved reinforces the potential of this strategy to generate new judicial standards for the protection of biodiversity and the climate.
- Whales of the Gulf of California through the organization Nuestro Futuro AC
- Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT)
- Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment (ASEA)
The Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez, is a marine territory of enormous ecological, economic, and legal importance to Mexico. It lies between the Baja California Peninsula and the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, extending approximately 1,000 km from the mouth of the Colorado River in the north to the archipelago of Cabo San Lucas and Cabo Corrientes in the south. It is a particularly important area for analyzing environmental and climate disputes because it encompasses exceptional biodiversity, fishing activities, shipping, energy infrastructure, tourism, and marine conservation.
The Gulf is not simply a place where whales pass through. It is an ecological system used in different ways by different species. Some species stay for certain periods to feed, while others use its waters as part of their migratory routes. Therefore, activities that seemingly occur in a specific location can have consequences for a much larger ecological area.
This is particularly important given the increase in maritime traffic associated with the Saguaro LNG Project, because the environmental analysis should not be limited to the land site where the infrastructure is located, but should consider the consequences on the marine system, including underwater noise, large vessel traffic, risk of collisions, alteration of cetacean behavior and cumulative impacts.
The Gulf is also one of Mexico's main fishing grounds. The productivity of its waters sustains numerous commercial and artisanal fisheries and is a vital source of income and food for coastal communities. This creates an important territorial characteristic: biodiversity conservation is closely linked to food security and local economies. Ecosystem degradation can simultaneously affect protected species, fishers, and coastal communities.
International agreements/treaties
- Escazú Agreement
- Convention on Biological Diversity
- Convention on the Law of the Sea
- International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments
- Advisory Opinion on Climate Emergency of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (OC-32/2025)
National laws
- Political Constitution of the United Mexican States
- Law of Protection
- General Wildlife Law
- General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection
- Regulations on Environmental Impact Assessment
- General Law on Climate Change
- NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010
Beginning
- Principle of participation and access to information
- Principle of prevention
- Precautionary principle