Posted on 26 September
2010
Halifax, Canada: The long-standing fishing
moratorium on southern
Grand Banks cod is to be extended for at
least another three years, member countries
of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
(NAFO) decided Friday.
In another move applauded
by WWF as one of its “measures of success”
for the annual NAFO meeting, countries established
a working group of scientists and managers
to develop a rebuilding strategy in line
with the precautionary approach and international
commitments.
“We are pleased with
the adoption of a NAFO working group to
develop plans and we are optimistic that,
when implemented, the plan will yield considerable
long-term economic and ecological benefits,”
said Dr. Bettina Saier, Director Oceans,
WWF-Canada.
Grand Banks cod, once
the basis of one of the world’s most productive
and noted fisheries, have responded only
slowly to a fishing moratorium introduced
16 years ago. Recent NAFO moves to establish
voluntary limits on cod bycatch in other
fisheries have seen the limits exceeded
by more than half in 2009.
Atlantic cod numbers
on the southern Grand Banks are estimated
at only about 10 percent of historical levels,
but the 2010 assessment data indicated a
significant increase in the number of spawning
fish. The fragile recovery is however, completely
dependent on reducing excessive bycatch.
No new measures to reduce
bycatch were adopted but the rebuilding
plan is a significant step forward. Canada
took the lead at NAFO by developing a plan
to create a robust rebuilding strategy for
depleted stocks, including essential elements
such as rebuilding targets, timelines, and
harvest control rules.
A precautionary approach
compliant with the rebuilding strategy will
also be developed for American plaice, another
stock currently under moratorium.
NAFO also extended protection
of a number of seamounts, classified by
the UN since 2006 as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems.
Seamounts closed to bottom fishing activities
until 2014 were Orphan Knoll, Fogo Seamounts
1 and 2, Corner Seamounts, Newfoundland
Seamounts, and New England Seamounts.
While WWF congratulates
NAFO on its progress in meeting international
commitments to protect these VMEs, a number
of other conservation and management measures
required by international commitments have
not yet been met. Among other issues not
addressed, contracting parties did not agree
to undertake standardized impact assessments
in all bottom fishing areas.
“Standardized impact
assessments as specified by FAO guidelines
in the entire NAFO regulatory area are an
important tool to evaluate and assess the
impacts of fishing on vulnerable habitats
and species,” said Dr. Robert Rangeley,
Vice-President, WWF-Canada, Atlantic Region
“NAFO’s Contracting
Parties have not met their commitments made
under the UN General Assembly resolution
64/72, which does not set a good example
for other regional fisheries management
organizations.”
NAFO also adopted criteria
for its first independent performance review
based on the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, giving
them the opportunity to increase their transparency
and strengthen their conservation measures.
+ More
One thousand tortoises
a week illegally gathered in south Madagascar
Posted on 28 September
2010
Toliara, Madagascar:
Ten or more zebu carts filled with around
100 terrestrial tortoises each are leaving
the Mahafaly Plateau in south Madagascar
every week, according to a survey conducted
by WWF staff.
And while poaching of
the endemic radiated tortoise (Astrochelys
radiata) and the spider tortoise (Pyxis
arachnoids) for the bush meat and pet trade
is long established, ongoing political instability
has seen a large jump in illegal collection.
Poachers are also now
much more likely to be armed and dangerous,
with Toliara area gendarmes suspecting a
well established network behind the poachers
now lies behind the trade.
Radiated and spider
tortoises are among only four terrestrial
tortoise species found in Madagascar and
their range is limited to the unique but
also under pressure southern spiny forest.
Some 7,855 living tortoises
and more than 4.8 tonnes of meat were seized
between 2001 and 2010 – thought to represent
around two per cent of an estimated 600,000
tortoises collected from the eco region
during that period.
Highly sought after
in exotic pet markets
“The population decline
of these flagship species is alarming,”
said Tiana Ramahaleo, WWF’s Conservation
Planning and Species Programme Coordinator
in Madagascar. “If we don’t manage to halt
tortoise poaching and habitat destruction
in the South, we might lose both tortoises
in the wild in less than fifty years”
Radiated tortoise meat
is a delicacy for the Vezo and Antanosy
ethnic groups in the south and people from
the High Plateau around Madagascar's capital
Antananarivo during special events such
as Christmas, Easter and Independence Day
– accounting for peaks in poaching for a
few weeks before the festivals. To a lesser
extent, radiated tortoises are killed after
they invade crop fields in search for food.
A recent survey by WWF
Toliara among 30 communities in the south
western spiny forest shows that tortoise
collection in the Plateau Mahafaly is still
rampant. Tortoises are gathered in this
area and sent to the main meat markets such
as Toliara and Fort Dauphin for local consumption
or they are being smuggled out of the country.
Tortoise habitat is
also under threat from alarming levels of
deforestation, with a study made in 2008
by Conservation International (CI) showing
an increase in deforestation rates from
1.2 per cent annually 1999-2000 to nearly
four per cent annually in some regions in
2000-2005. The main drivers behind such
high rates of deforestation are slash and
burn agriculture, bush fires and charcoal
production for the towns of Toliara and
Fort Dauphin.
Madagascar’s endemic
tortoises are highly sought after in exotic
pet markets. TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade
programme of WWF, recently reported radiated
tortoises and other threatened Malagasy
species openly on sale in pet markets in
both Thailand and Indonesia, while TRAFFIC
also reports a number of occasions when
travellers have been arrested with Malagasy
tortoises in their luggage in the region.
Earlier this year, two
Malagasy women became the first people charged
and convicted under Malaysia’s tough new
International Trade in Endangered Species
Act 2008 after they were found with 374
tortoises, the majority of them radiated
tortoises in their possession. Each woman
received a one year prison term. There have
also been a number of seizures from passengers
at Madagascar’s international airport in
Ivato.
“Such effective law
enforcement action in Asia sends a strong
deterrent signal to those involved in the
illicit trade that this global problem is
being tackled in an increasingly systematic
manner,” said James Compton, Director of
TRAFFIC’s Asia-Pacific Programme.
WWF in Madagascar has
been active in the spiny forest eco region
since 1999.
“We managed to reduce
deforestation rate by 27% where WWF works”
says Ramahaleo “And four theatre groups
are touring the South raising awareness
for tortoise conservation. Many villages
have decided to forbid tortoise poaching
and cooperate well with local authorities.
Almost all seizures made so far were possible
because of community members blowing the
whistle”.
This year, WWF Toliara
celebrated the Year of Biodiversity with
a conference about their endemic tortoises.
The objective was to raise awareness among
the local population and animate them to
conserve these emblematic species.
But even as WWF Toliara
was holding this conference, participants
received the breaking news: tortoise poachers
had been arrested outside Toliara and 1,475
living tortoises as well as dry tortoise
meat confiscated.
“For the next 5 years
WWF will empower civil society and establish
an information network in the south to help
the police make sure tortoise trafficking
does not go unpunished,” said Ramahaleo.
“We will also continue
development initiatives in the region to
show people there are alternatives to poaching
tortoises for an income.
“Last but not least,
we are asking every single person on this
planet not to buy endangered Malagasy tortoises
as pets. If the demand for the radiated
and the spider tortoise on international
markets is weakening, it’ll buy time to
save them once and for all.”
