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During the last two weeks in Doha, capital of Qatar,
15th Conference of the Parties (CoP) of Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
took place. It is believed by many, that CITES is one of the
most important nature conservation convention. It seems to
be true, as at the moment there are 175 CITES Parties (countries
who signed this agreement), in which countries rules of this
convention are implemented. On the other hand, some are indicating,
that it is more and more difficult to include into CITES Appendices
those really heavily exploited species and therefore the major
sense of this Convention is slowly washing away. Sadly it
has to be admitted, that last CoP seems to confirm this observation.
Without any doubts the biggest losers of the CoP 15th are
marine species. All of the four proposals, for listing nine
new species of sharks into CITES App II, were rejected.
The biggest chances for listing had porbelagle shark, which
initially was accepted during the Committee I session with
big applause from the pro-conservation side of the room, but
during the plenary session proposal was reopened and rejected.
One sixth of all of the shark species are endangered. The
main reasons for that are overfishing, shark finning and by-catch.
According to the OCEANA, an international non-governmental
organization focusing on the marine conservation, each year
between 26 and 73 millions of sharks are finned. Fishermen
are collecting only fins, as its price significantly exceeds
the price of the shark meat. Crippled bodies of caught sharks
(usually still alive) are discarded back to the water.
Parties of the CITES rejected also proposal for listing blue-fin
tuna into Appendix I. This is the biggest tuna species.
The price for a single individual on the auctions in Tokyo
is over 100.000 USD! It is therefore not a surprise that the
populations of this fish are going rapidly down due to the
heavily overfishing - e.g. West Atlantic blue-fin tuna population
has been reduced by more than 82% between 1970 and 2007.
Also proposal for listing of the 31 species of red and
pink corals into Appendix II was not accepted by the Parties.
These animals are heavily exploited for the jeweler industry.
The biggest consumer of these species is the USA. Between
2001 and 2008 this country imported over 26 million worked
pieces and over 50 tones of manufactured items!
The biggest loser of the CoP 15th was the polar bear.
The USA proposal for up-listing this majestic mammal from
the App II to App I was rejected during voting at Doha. According
to U.S. Geological Survey in the nearest 45 years this species
has gone to decline in two-third, as a result of global warming,
due to which the sea ice -the habitat of this species - melts.
Although the painful defeats mentioned above, there were also
some positive outcomes of the Conference in Qatar. The biggest
achievement of the pro-conservation side was probably rejection
of the Tanzanian and Zambian proposals regarding African
elephants. Both countries submitted a proposals to down-list
the populations of elephants from App I to App II and to one
off sell of their government owned stocks of ivory (together
over 100 tones) to Japan and China. Proposals were strongly
opposed by most nature conservation NGOs, 23 African elephant
range states and many other Parties of CITES.
Zambian official delegate trying to convince the CITES Parties
during the plenary session to agree
for down-listing of the Zambian elephant population from the
CITES App. I to App. II.
The most welcomed decision by CEEweb for Biodiversity
was the decision about rejecting the USA proposal for deletion
of the bobcat from the CITES Appendices. According
to the USFWS, trade in this species is well controlled and
the populations of this cat are in good conditions. It should
be kept in mind, that bobcat was added to the CITES App II
in 1977 to ensure effective control of the trade in other,
similar in appearance felids - e.g. Iberian lynx (the most
threatened cat species in the world) and Eurasian lynx (which
globally is not threatened, but some of the European populations
are endangered or even critically endangered). This look alike
problem is still the main reason to keep bobcat in App II
of CITES. Manual for the recognition of the bobcat from other
lynx species - which was elaborated by the scientists of the
Cornell University and mentioned in the USA proposal - does
not reflect the whole diversity in fur patterns and coloration
within these species and therefore it is useless as a tool
for the proper identification of lynx specimens.
Furthermore, during CoP 15th some of the South and Central
American herpetofauna was added to the CITES App II - four
species of critically endangered spiny-tailed iguanas
(from which three are endemic to Honduras and one to Guatemala)
and five species of tree frogs (including very popular
in pet trade red-eyed tree frog). Parties agreed also with
consensus to add critically endangered Kaiser's newt, an Iranian
endemic species to the CITES Appendix I. Within the last ten
years population of this species has declined more than 80%
mainly due to its illegal collecting for national and international
trades and due to habitat loss.
Lets hope, that marine species will get more support from
the CITES Parties during next CITES CoP, which is going to
take place in Thailand! Otherwise it may happened, that we
will loose another species soon.
For the purpose of CITES CoP 15th, CEEweb have issued a report
"e-CEETES - Central & Eastern European e-Trade in
Endangered Species", which can be downloaded here.
The following link leads to a list
of the position of Species Survival Network in regard
to some of the proposals which were considered during the
CITES COP15. CEEweb CITES WG fully supports these positions.
Moreover, apress release issued by CEEweb: "Animal protection
and wildlife conservation organizations applaud European Parliament
defence of endangered animals" can be found here.
For more information about CEEweb CITES Working Group,
contact Borys Kala,
programme coordinator
The activities of CEEweb related to the CITES COP15 are
realised with the financial support of the European Commission
and IFAW.
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