Posted on 15 December
2009 - Rome, Italy - United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
experts say evidence shows the endangered
Atlantic bluefin tuna meets the requirements
for an international trade ban.
The experts met as a
panel last week to discuss trade regulations
governing six commercially traded marine
species and whether to recommend further
action to protect them from overfishing.
Other species considered
by the panel included spiny dogfish, porbeagle,
red and pink corals, scalloped hammerhead
sharks and oceanic white tip shark.
The FAO’s panel is highly
influential in how countries vote during
the Conference of the Parties to the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which will
hold its 15th annual meeting in March in
Doha, Qatar.
Countries with strong
fisheries interests often rely on advice
from the panel on how to vote during those
meetings, meaning that the long-term survival
of some endangered species often depends
on the FAO panel’s recommendations.
The FAO opened its statement
today saying that "a majority of the
panel agreed that the available evidence
supports the proposal listing under CITES
Appendix I of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus
thynnus)" and later highlighted that
"an Appendix I listing would be likely
to reduce the bluefin catches from both
component populations. This would assist
to ensure that recent unsustainable catches
in the east Atlantic and Mediterranean are
reduced."
CITES, which is an international
agreement between governments that works
to ensure that international trade in wild
species does not threaten their survival,
normally offers its own scientific assessment
on all the proposals it receives. However,
in response to the concerns of larger fishing
countries, it made an agreement with FAO
that tasks the organization with conducting
its own technical assessment of proposals
for commercially traded marine species.
This week’s recommendation
from the FAO panel came after the scientific
committee of the International Commission
for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT),
the regional fisheries management organization
in charge of the Atlantic bluefin fishery,
had already shown through their own analysis
that the species meets the criteria for
a ban on international trade.
"Today’s comments
from the UN backing stronger protection
measures are a crucial contribution to efforts
to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna,” said
Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF
Mediterranean. “A listing on Appendix I
of CITES, which would temporarily ban all
international commercial trade, is the best
option by far to ensure the recovery and
long-term survival of Atlantic bluefin tuna,
now severely overfished."
"We all want the
same thing ultimately - a sustainable, thriving
fishery and trade of this species, but to
achieve that goal some drastic measures
are necessary now to give the fish a break.”
“WWF urges all CITES
Contracting Parties to adopt a strong position
on the Atlantic bluefin tuna listing proposal
to ensure a positive vote for the temporary
trade ban in Doha - and thus a chance to
save this icon of the oceans."
In addition, the panel
recommended stricter trade controls through
listing on CITES Appendix II for porbeagle,
scalloped hammerhead and oceanic white tip
sharks.
However, they also said
that spiny dogfish or red and pink corals
did not meet the criteria for stronger trade
controls.
WWF welcomed the panel’s
recommendations on porbeagle, scalloped
hammerhead and oceanic white tip sharks
but expressed disappointment that these
experts failed to see the importance of
giving spiny dogfish and red and pink corals
the same trade controls.
The panel recognized that “inadequate management
in many areas of distribution of these species
represents a cause for ‘serious concern,’”
and it recommended that national governments
and regional fisheries management organizations
remedy the situation on their own.
WWF does not agree that
this will be enough to save these species,
and believes that these species need the
support of a CITES Appendix II listing.
WWF is concerned that
in cases such as red coral the panel assumed
that, where data are lacking on how much
is harvested, that the species is not overharvested.
This is contrary to the precautionary principle
that lies at the heart of conservation decision-making.
In fact, the reason the data are lacking
is usually because the proper research has
not been conducted or because countries
are failing to report their catches.
A detailed report on the recommendations
of the panel will be released by the FAO
next month.
