An edited version of this post on CITES COP 16 is on the greenpeace.org website.
If I baked a cake for every significant birthday of an international
environmental agreement, I would have a weight problem right now. There has
been an avalanche of birthdays recently: the Montreal Protocol
to protect the Ozone layer turned 25; the Constitution of
the Oceans - called UNCLOS - turned 30 and now CITES - the convention regulating the international trade of wild plants
and animals - is celebrating its 40th anniversary (eek, same age as me!). Today,
a cake would be justified though, as CITES concluded its latest meeting in
Bangkok, Thailand, on a positive note. They took some additional steps to curb illegal
logging
and finally restricted trade
in key shark species. CITES is not in midlife crisis, it seems, but is fledging its teeth
and showing the world it has some bite! Good on them. You may keep hearing
about global environmental politics being dead. Days like today show that
reports of the death of multilateralism are highly exaggerated.
CITES currently has 177 member governments and usually makes
headlines because it deals with the trade of impressive looking elephants,
rhinos and tigers (you may have heard about Thailand
committing to end ivory trade at this year´s meeting. Leonardo di Caprio was pretty
excited about that). But CITES deals with A LOT more than elephants: It has
some 5000 animal species and 29 000 plant species on its overfull plate. It just
about manages to deal with that workload because unlike many UN agreements it
does not operate by consensus. If no common agreement can be found, parties put
a decision to a vote. The shark decisions this year were saved by a thin
majority – but saved they were. Even more importantly, CITES cannot just ask
nicely that governments please do what they have committed to. It can punish
governments that export more than CITES allows with trade sanctions that hurt.
In recent years, CITES had sadly not used these powers as much as
the world needs and failed to make progress on key issues such as
shark protection. Like other global
agreements, it had been hijacked by short term economic interests – with
governments acting as servants to big business. As a result several commercially
valuable but threatened fish species - including sharks - had failed to be
listed by previous CITES meetings in
recent years. That is why the listing of five shark species and two manta rays
(look here if you - like me
- didn´t immediately know what those are) today is all the more sweet. This
time, the forces of darkness lost – and CITES did what it was established for.
It protected our global commons over private interests.
Cake is in order then. And a big shout out to our allies Pew and the cites4sharks.org coalition that
worked tirelessly over these past years, months and days to ensure that these
species escape the fate of the poor dodo …Gratitude, also, to those governments
who stood up for sharks and the environment today. You know what, you should
have days like this more often – serving the people, not the polluters.
But this is not a champagne moment. Whilst it is a great affirmation
of multilateralism for the world’s governments to come together and decide to
protect these extremely valuable marine species, the need to do so is truly alarming
and sad. We need these CITES trade measures precisely because we are so
spectacularly bad at managing our planetary home, driving more and more species
to (the brink of) extinction. We need CITES strong teeth to protect sharks because otherwise we will not have any
sharks left. And to be certain that sharks have a future, much more than
today´s CITES decisions will be needed.
Millions of sharks are caught as part of global tuna
fisheries every year. Their bodies are thrown overboard, but only after the fins are hacked
off in order to end up in shark-fin soup. As a result, it is almost too late
for some shark species, such as the oceanic white tips, that have gone through
dramatic stock declines.
CITES trade controls will help monitor and limit the number of
species traded, as permits are only granted if the trade of the species can be
proven not to compromise the future survival of this species in the wild. These
extra measures will significantly improve current scientific assessments on
these species, which are currently weak or in some cases non-existent. However,
as long as fisheries management and enforcement in tuna fisheries remain weak, massive
loopholes will remain.
Following the positive steps taken at CITES today, it is now time for
governments to improve ocean
governance overall and to urgently ban shark finning. So called transshipments at sea
for tuna vessels – which in practice catch the majority of sharks – also need
to be banned. These transfers of
products from one ship to another enables shark fins to be “laundered” as
domestic trade, therefore escaping the scrutiny of CITES’ controls. Greenpeace,
therefore, is campaigning for tuna brands, restaurants and retailers to not buy
from vessels that engage in this practice.
CITES took a step forward today. That gives me – and all of us Rainbow
Warriors - new energy for the next battles that we must also win if sharks, our
oceans and our planet are to have a sustainable future.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen