The narrow finger of Mexico's Baja peninsula reaches into some of the world's richest waters, teeming with unique ocean life. Pacific Ocean waves crash onto Baja's west coast, and the warm, tranquil Gulf of California, known as the aquarium of the world, lies to the east.

But these very same waters, and the nearly 800-mile-long coastline they surround, are under tremendous pressure from overfishing, unregulated tourism schemes and destructive industrial projects. NRDC has worked for more than a decade to fend off threats to Baja, starting in 1995, when we spearheaded a successful campaign to stop the Mexican government and the Mitsubishi Corporation from building a colossal salt factory on the banks of the world's last untouched gray whale nursery at San Ignacio Lagoon. Despite that victory in 2000, the whale birthing ground never received permanent protection, and the threat of industrialization remains.

NRDC and our Mexican partners are moving fast to protect imperiled marine mammal habitat around Baja California. We are buying up the development rights to one million acres surrounding San Ignacio Lagoon and fending off proposals to build industrial ports and piers along the gray whales' Pacific coast migration route. In the northern part of the Gulf of California we are working with local fishermen to create a sustainable fishing industry to save the vaquita marina, the world's smallest and most endangered porpoise, from extinction. Further south we are implementing protections for Bahia de los Angeles as a U.N. Biosphere Reserve.