More protection for Marine species to come...?

(from SeaWeb.org) Red and pink corals, the Atlantic bluefin tuna, the polar bear and several shark species are being considered for increased protection when the 15th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) convenes in Doha, Qatar, from March 13 to 25.

Pink and red corals are deep-sea precious corals found in the Mediterranean and Pacific. Between 30 and 50 metric tons are fished annually to meet consumer demand for jewelry and decorative items. The United States alone imported 28 million pieces of red and pink coral between 2001 and 2008. Necklaces made from the smoothed and polished skeletons of red or pink coral colonies can fetch up to US$25,000.

This will be the second attempt to list red and pink corals on CITES Appendix II. Delegates to the 14th Conference of the Parties in the Netherlands in June 2007 initially agreed to the listing then reversed their decision in a secret ballot on the last day of the meeting following intense lobbying by industry representatives.

Eight species of shark—spiny dogfish, porbeagle, oceanic whitetip, scalloped hammerhead, great hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, dusky and sandbar—will also be considered for inclusion under Appendix II. The spiny dogfish and porbeagle are caught extensively for their meat, while the oceanic whitetip and scalloped hammerhead are caught primarily for their fins, as well as incidentally during other fishing operations; for all four species, overfishing has reduced the sharks' abundance in all or part of their range. The remaining four species have been proposed for listing on the grounds that their similarity to scalloped hammerhead would make distinguishing between them extremely difficult for enforcement officers, thus necessitating their inclusion as well.

Overfishing has caused populations of Atlantic bluefin tuna to plummet throughout the species' range. One study has suggested that continued fishing at present levels will soon push bluefin population numbers in the East Atlantic down to only 6 percent of what they were before fishing began and to 18 percent of what their population was in 1970. Monaco has proposed that bluefin be listed under Appendix I, which would ban any international trade. The United States has announced its support for the listing. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU), has proposed a fishing ban on the species by its members and urged support of the CITES proposal by all 27 EU members. Japan, the fish's biggest consumer, has vowed to oppose the proposal and to ignore it should it be adopted.

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More protection for Marine species to come...?