Progress in some areas at CITES, but marine proposals fail

The CITES meeting in Doha was notable for the rejection of proposals to afford better protection for marine species Click photo to enlarge © TRAFFIC  Doha, Qatar–The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting finished in Qatar in late March and was marked by the repeated rejection of proposals to afford better protection for marine species, such as the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, corals and several shark species, and no movement on whether to resume legal sales of African ivory.

However, away from these high profile issues, there was significant progress in other areas on the conservation agenda, notably in progress towards implementing better protection for rhinos, tigers, and Humphead Wrasse and for better implementation of an Ivory Action Plan.

The highest profile issue—whether Atlantic Bluefin Tuna should be listed in Appendix I of the Convention, a move that would have banned all commercial international trade in the species—was heavily defeated, both the proposal itself and an EU amendment.

Governments instead preferred to leave the management of this commercially important fish species in the hands of the hands of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an intergovernmental fishery organization responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas. When ICCAT next meets, this November in Paris, it will be under extreme pressure to live up to the expectations and confidence placed in it by the governments meeting at CITES. Indeed, the Doha meeting may prove to be a turning point in the recovery of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna populations.

Red and Pink Corals – species that are heavily exploited for the jewellery trade, but greatly overharvested in many parts of their range, failed for the second CITES meeting running to be afforded greater protection within the Convention.

Separately, requests by two countries—Tanzania and Zambia—to relax trade restrictions on their elephant populations which would have allowed for a one-time sell-off of government-owned ivory stockpiles were both voted down at the meeting, while a Kenyan-led proposal to prevent legalized ivory for the next 20 years by any African nation was withdrawn without a vote. Each year tonnes of legally sourced ivory accumulate in government stockpiles in Africa, yet governments in the continent remain deeply divided as whether such ivory should be sold.

Away from marine and ivory issues, CITES governments maintained their position against farming of tigers for trade in parts and derivatives, and tiger range countries, including China, reached a strong consensus on the way forward to address pressing concerns of illegal trade threatening wild populations of tiger and other Asian big cat species. The UK government was at the centre of raising the issue of tiger trade at the meeting.

Meanwhile, countries with rhino populations agreed to focus on increasing law enforcement, training of guards, strengthening border controls, improving rhino population monitoring, creating awareness raising campaigns in consumer countries such as Vietnam, and rooting out organized crime syndicates that are behind the increase in poaching and illegal trade.

There was also a boost for enforcement efforts more generally, with increased financial resources allocated to enforcement issues agreed in the CITES budget discussions, and the recently formed International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), made up of the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank and the World Customs Organization, committing to engage on a number of joint activities to bring wildlife criminals to justice.

The Qatar meeting was attended by around 130 member governments, including all six CAWT partnership members, plus a number of non-governmental observers, including several from CAWT such as HSI, IFAW, IUCN, TRAFFIC, WCS and WWF.

TRAFFIC will be publishing a summary of the Doha CITES meeting in the next issue of the TRAFFIC Bulletin, scheduled for distribution this October.