Sharks, elephants to reappear on CITES agenda

Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 24 Mar 10;

DOHA (AFP) – Decisions to tighten or relax trade protection for elephants in Zambia and two species of sharks prized for their fins or meat could be overturned on the last day of a key UN wildlife meeting on Thursday.

The final plenary session of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) validates decisions taken over the previous 12 days, but a motion to reopen debate supported by a third of delegates can lead to a new vote.

The United States had said it will seek a second chance for the distinctive scalloped hammerhead shark, denied so-called Appendix II status by a handful of votes earlier in the week.

Appendix II requires countries to monitor and report all exports, and to demonstrate that fishing is carried out in a sustainable manner.

Currently, international trade in sharks is almost entirely unregulated.

Once plentiful, the hammerhead has been fished to the edge of viability to satisfy a burgeoning demand for sharkfin soup, a prestige food eaten in Chinese communities around the world.

Between 1.5 and 2.3 million specimens are pulled from the seas every year -- and most are then tossed back into the water to die after their precious fins have been sliced off.

Japan is likely to seek the reversal of a decision to extend Appendix II status to the porbeagle, the only one of four sharks up for review to gain CITES protection.

Tokyo has vehemently and vocally opposed all efforts in Doha to impose trade restrictions on high-value marine species, and led the successful campaign to vote down a proposed Appendix I ban on cross-border commerce in Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Fished mainly for its meat rather than its fins, the cold-water porbeagle is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as "critically endangered" in the Mediterranean and northeast Atlantic, and as "vulnerable" globally.

Joined by China and many other developing nations, Japan acknowledges that many marine species are in decline but argues that regional inter-governmental fisheries are the best tool to manage stocks, not CITES.

Finally, experts say that Zambia may again try to downgrade the protection status of its elephants from Appendix I to the less restrictive Appendix II.

Its first attempt was rejected in a secret ballot, with 55 in favour and 36 opposed, several votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

There were 40 abstentions, however, providing ample opportunity for lobbying ahead of a second vote.

Zambia withdrew a separate bid in Doha for a one-off sale of 21.7 tonnes of stockpiled tusks, but would probably seek authorisation at the next CITES meeting three years from now if the downlisting bid succeeds.

Both China and Japan, the only authorised markets for ivory, backed the sale, which is opposed by the United States and the European Union.

"Japan is working the corridors, trying to line up votes," said Matt Rand, a shark specialist at the Pew Environment Group in Washington D.C.

Conservationists are also lobbying hard, and trying to make sure certain delegations remain until the very end of the plenary to cast their votes.