Posted on 27 November
2009
Rome, Italy – A new international agreement
to better control vessels in the world’s
ports will cut off access to global markets
for pirate fishers, responsible for fueling
overfishing and the illegal seafood trade.
This week, states participating
in the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) adopted an agreement
on port control of vessels engaged in fishing
and fish trade, which will greatly reduce
illegal fishing.
The new Binding International
Agreement on Port State Control Measures
to Combat, Deter and Eliminate Illegal,
Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing
(Port State Agreement) sets minimum standards
for what every port state must do to prevent
illegally caught fish from being offloaded
and reaching global markets.
WWF applauds the FAO
for ensuring that the Port State Agreement
was successfully developed and adopted,
and commends progressive member states such
as Norway for encouraging the negotiation
process for the past two years.
“The oceans are not
a ‘free-for-all.’ This landmark agreement
makes clear the responsibility of states
to keep illegal fish from entering their
ports;” said Miguel A. Jorge Director Marine
Program at WWF International. “States serious
about stamping out pirate fishing and preventing
illegally caught seafood from reaching our
dinner plates will sign on to this agreement
quickly.”
The Port State Agreement
was opened for signature on Nov. 23 during
the FAO Annual Conference in Rome. Currently,
11 states including the European Union,
Chile, Indonesia, Norway and the United
States have signed the new treaty, an important
first step to become a party to the agreement.
In order to enter into force, 25 states
need to become parties to the Port State
Agreement.
Illegal fishing is one
of the largest causes of overfishing and
threatens the livelihoods of legitimate
fishers and coastal communities. Current
estimated value of financial losses because
of illegal fishing worldwide is estimated
at USD 10 billion to USD 23 billion annually.
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Danish PM's stitch-up
on Copenhagen unravels in Beijing
Posted on 28 November
2009 - Gland, Switzerland - WWF has welcomed
the very strong signal from leading emerging
economies that the Copenhagen climate change
conference is far too important to be stitched
up in the usual way by the usual suspects
in the developed world.
At a meeting in Beijing
Saturday, representatives of Brazil, South
Africa, India and China (the BASIC countries)
indicated they intend to reject a draft
Danish “political agreement” at the Copenhagen
climate conference which is regarded as
the developed world’s preferred outcome
for the conference. The Danish Prime Minister,
who has spent the last month circulating
the world to talk down prospects of a strong,
legally binding deal in Copenhagen, is currently
in Trinidad and Tobago for the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting.
“We are not surprised
the emerging economies have laid down this
challenge for the developed world,” said
said Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s Global
Climate Initiative. “Quite frankly the Danish
proposal is incredibly weak and the developing
world aren’t gullible."
Carstensen said that
the stance of the BASIC countries, dissension
by African countries at the recent Barcelona
negotiations session and calls from small
island states and nations vulnerable to
climate change impacts showed a growing
rebellion against the feeble commitments
on emissions cuts and climate financing
from the developed world.
“Those who will suffer
the most from climate change impacts are
sending an ever stronger and clearer message
to those who have done the most to cause
them,” Carstensen said. “We need clear commitments,
we need a legally binding agreement, and
not just nice words about a political will
that’s not there.
“The developed world
needs to respond to the science with much
deeper emissions cuts, much more new money
on the table and much more willingness to
share the technologies for low carbon development.
Data shows illegal ivory trade on rise
Posted on 16 November 2009
Cambridge, UK: The illicit trade in ivory,
which has been increasing in volume since
2004, moved sharply upward in 2009, according
to the latest analysis of seizure data in
the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS).
ETIS, one of the two
monitoring systems for elephants under CITES
(the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)
but managed by TRAFFIC, holds the world’s
largest collection of elephant product seizure
records.
The analysis, undertaken
in advance of the 15th meeting of the Conference
of the Parties (CoP15) to CITES, was based
upon 14,364 elephant product seizure records
from 85 countries or territories since 1989,
nearly 2,000 more records than the previous
analysis, in 2007.
The remarkable surge
in 2009 reflects a series of large-scale
ivory seizure events that suggest increased
involvement of organized crime syndicates
in the trade, connecting African source
countries with Asian end-use markets. The
ETIS data indicate that such syndicates
have become stronger and more active over
the last decade.
There continues to be
a highly significant correlation between
large-scale domestic ivory markets in Asia
and Africa and poor law enforcement, suggesting
that illicit ivory trade flows typically
follow a path to destinations where law
enforcement is weak and markets function
with little regulatory impediment.
Indeed, the rise in
illicit trade in ivory indicates that implementation
of a CITES “action plan for the control
of trade in African elephant ivory,” the
Convention’s principal vehicle for closing
such unregulated and illicit domestic markets
in Africa and Asia, has failed to drive
any significant change over the last five
years.
The ETIS analysis identifies
Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo and Thailand as the three countries
most heavily implicated in the global illicit
ivory trade. Illegal trade involving each
of these nations has been repeatedly singled
out for priority attention since the first
assessment in 2002, but they continue to
feature as critical hotspots in the trade
as sources, entrêpots and consumers
of ivory.
Another nine countries
and territories—Cameroon, Gabon and Mozambique
in Africa and Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam
in Asia—were also identified as important
nodes in the illicit ivory trade.
China, which along with
Japan was an approved destination of the
legal, CITES-sanctioned one-off ivory sale
in 2008, faces a persistent illegal trade
challenge from Chinese nationals now based
in Africa. Ongoing evidence highlights widespread
involvement of overseas Chinese in the illicit
procurement of ivory, a problem that needs
to be addressed through an aggressive outreach
and awareness initiative directed at Chinese
communities living abroad.
The results are less
clear-cut concerning the impacts of the
CITES approved one-off ivory sales in 1999
and 2008.
Following the first
such sale, in June 1999, there was a progressive
decline in the illicit trade in ivory for
five years, with no evidence to suggest
that the sale had resulted in an increase
in the illicit ivory trade globally.
After the second CITES-approved
ivory sale, in late 2008, the results are
unclear as to whether it has stimulated
increase demand or whether it has simply
coincided with an increase in supply that
was already underway over the last four
years. The collection of more data over
an extended time period will throw further
light on this vital issue.
The full ETIS report
can be downloaded from the CITES website
as document at http://www.cites.org/common/cop/15/doc/E15-44-01A.pdf
