Tuna, elephants up for trade ban at UN meet

Tuna hauled from the seas for sushi, elephants poached for ivory and tigers farmed in China top the agenda at a UN-led conference which started Saturday on policing world trade in imperilled species.

Gathering over 13 days in Doha, Qatar, the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) faces tense debate on how to protect dwindling biodiversity harvested for its alluring cash value.

Until now, the forum was best known for measures on restricting commerce in charismatic species, including big cats, great apes and elephants. But for the first time ever, a marine species bluefin tuna will take centre stage.

Despite self-imposed quotas, high-tech fisheries have plundered tuna stocks, depleting them by as much as 80 percent in the Mediterranean and Western Atlantic since 1970.

Led by Monaco and supported by the United States and the European Union (EU), pressure is growing for the fat, gleaming fish to be given a CITES Appendix I listing, joining iconic fauna such as the mountain gorilla and snow leopard.

“Taking on really commercially valuable marine species trade that is worth billions of dollars is a big step for CITES,” said Sue Lieberman, policy director for the Pew Environment Group in Washington.

For many of these species, she said, “there is either no management at all, as for sharks, or serious mismanagement, like tuna.”

The fishing industry has been responsible for maintaining bluefin tuna stocks since the 1960s, and yet every year the species has declined, Lieberman observed.

“Another two-to-five years of overfishing, and they won’t recover,” she said in an interview.

Japan, the main market for bluefin, strongly opposes a ban and is already lobbying to block the two-thirds vote needed for the proposal to pass. It has also threatened to ignore the ban if voted. Other marine species are up for Appendix II status, which regulates but does not forbid cross-border trade.

AFP