CITES Report 2010
The CATCA report from CITES 2010.
INTRODUCTION
The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) held its meeting of parties from 13-25 March, 2010 in Doha, Qatar. 175 member countries, 13 intergovernmental organizations and 126 NGO's (including nine NGOs from Japan, from the Japanese Crafts Associations to Fisheries and these ones from Canada: Nunavut Tungavik Inc., Nunatsuavut Government, Inuit Tapiniit Kanatami and Inuvialuit Game Council), anticipated in what turned out to be a Japan victoriously leading the fight to defeat the ban on Atlantic blue fin tuna and preventing several shark species used in the fin trade from gaining protection. Just like at the International Whaling Commission meetings, Japan's success comes from aggressive lobbying campaigns where vote-buying is common.
Unfortunately, Canada successfully lead the fight to defeat the ban on Polar Bear and the Spiny Dogfish.
MEETINGS
CITES meetings started on March 13.
On the second day of the CoP, I lobbied with about 25 countries with quite a good degree of success.
It was hard to get NGO's to participate at the meeting that I organized with the Canadian delegation, but it is quite difficult as NGO's don't like our anti-conservation country.
I got Shark Alliance and Animal Defenders International to agree to go with her to talk to the Canadian delegation, but then Canada announced that they would not let any one non Canadanian, not even a Canadian NGO's into their morning meetings!
On March 18, CITES delegates led by Canada voted 62 votes against, 48 in favor and 11 abstentions not to give greater protection to the polar bear. The now defeated United States proposal would have banned the international commercial trade in polar bear parts and products. If adopted at CITES, it would have kept at least 3,000 polar bears out of the commercial trade over the next decade at a time when the species is increasingly threatened by loss of habitat due to global climate change. In Canada alone 689 polar bears are legally killed each year. The parts and products of an average of 300 of these polar bears are exported annually. The EU is the largest importer of polar bear parts, importing 65% of those traded for commercial purposes over the last ten years; this includes 775 skins and 1279 skin pieces. The EU has recognised the impact of commercial trade by banning imports of polar bear specimens from two populations in Canada because the authorities could not demonstrate that take levels were sustainable. It so far has failed to stop imports from 5 other declining Canadian populations.
As expected, Canada led the way in stopping the uplisting of Polar Bears bringing an Inuit putting on a show where he cried tears of sorrow for his people. Surprisingly many countries in Latin America and Africa voted in favour of Canada.
Only hours later, Monaco proposal to ban the export of Atlantic blue fin tuna prized in sushi was rejected, with scores of developing nations joining Japan in opposing a measure they feared would devastate fishing economies, failed by a vote of 68 to 20, with 30 abstentions. It was a stunning setback considering that extreme measures are necessary to recover populations that have fallen by 75 per cent due to widespread over fishing. This fish can weight up to 680 kg. One 200-kilogram Pacific blue fin tuna fetched a record of 20.2 million yen ($226,000 Cad) last year. Japan, which imports 80 per cent of Atlantic blue fin and led the opposition of this ban. Stocks were in trouble but echoed a growing consensus at the meeting that CITES should have no role in regulating tuna and other marine species. This astonishing proposal is a worrying precedent and will surely pave the way to more calls of CITES stepping aside from having any role in marine issues.
On March 21, the proposal for trade restrictions on red and pink corals used in jewellery was rejected. The U.S. and the European Union had proposed to limit the trade in 31 species of corals, found from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, which would have affected trade worth tens of millions of dollars. The coral proposal fell short of the needed two-thirds majority by mustering 64 votes in favour with 59 against and 10 abstentions. About 50 tonnes a year are collected in the main coral grounds in the Pacific and the Mediterranean, down from about 450 tonnes in the mid-1980s. Some rare corals, including black corals, are already protected by CITES. Similar proposals to protect red and pink corals were also rejected the last time CITES met in 2007.
On March 22, Dr. Ron Orenstein threatened the Canadian delegation to publish a news article in the Canadian media criticizing Canada for not letting their country's ENGO to participate in their delegations morning meetings. Then they agreed to discuss when to meet me, but not during the meetings. That day at 2:30 PM I received a notification that they wanted to meet with her and few NGOs at 4:30 PM that same day, but due to all internet problems I didn't receive it until after 5:00 PM when the Plenary was over for the day. I contacted the Canadian delegation again.
Finally on March 22, I secured a meeting with the Canadian delegation where about 12 people participated, including the recipient of a Baffin Award during this CoP15th. Ms. Birgith Sloth of the Society for the Conservation of Marine Mammals from Denmark, Dr. Ron Orenstein of the Humane Society International and Heike Zidowitz of the Shark Alliance from Germany, Edward Dorson of Shark Research in the USA. During this meeting with Canada, we were told that Canada would support all the shark proposals but for the Spiny Dogfish, which the DFO says that they are recuperating.
When the head of delegation David McGovern, Assistant Deputy Minister for International Affairs at Environment Canada was asked by Dr. Orenstein why they refused to meet us and why they make it so difficult for us, the few Canadian NGOs at the CoP, to get to meet our own delegation (I had to phone Ottawa to get someone there to phone the Head of Delegation that was just sitting two rows in front me, just to notify them that I wanted to meet with them, but they still didn't contact me after 1 week), Mr. Mc Govern replied to Dr. Orenstein: "I have no intention of opening up a 'cattle call' for just anyone to come into our session. Dr. Ron Orenstein got quite angry with Mr.David Mc Govern about this offensive remark. As a response, Dr. Orenstein, wrote an article that he sent to the Canadian media complaining about their behaviour during CITES. We don't know if this article was published or not.
On March 23, the sharks lost when a majority of votes rejected a proposal submitted by the United States to adopt the protection of four hammerhead shark species. These species are highly endangered because of the shark fin trade.
These proposals failed to achieve the 2/3 vote needed to get on Appendix II. Spain on behalf of the EU, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Qatar spoke in favour while Cuba, China, Singapore and Indonesia spoke against. 75 countries voted in favour, 45 countries were against and there were 14 abstentions.
In the last 15 years, the scalloped hammerheads has declined by about a 89% . The hammerhead fins seall at about $125 per kilo. Every year, betweent 1.3 to 2.7 million scalloped and smooth hammerheads are killed for their fins.
On March 24, all the other shark proposals were rejected. The Porbeagle shark Proposal is the only shark Proposal that had passed, but the Japanese with their extreme lobbying, managed to reopened this proposal and by only two votes we lost them, (This was because the head of delegation of Moldovia arrived late and pressed yes on the vote machine, thinking it was to protect the porbeagles, but in doing that she re-opened the vote). It was after lunch so many delegates were outside the room so we lost them. A tragedy!
Kenya, openly accused Tokyo of pressuring delegates to support its positions and paying fisheries officials from unnamed African countries to attend the conference. Japan then acknowledged that Japanese government funds were used by nations to attend CITES and other fisheries conferences, but they denied there was and vote-buying going on.
CONCLUSION
In brief the CoP 16 was a disaster for marine conservation. Japan with its over 60 very active delegation, literally killed off almost all the efforts to protect marine species, including the polar bear, the blue fin tuna and all the sharks. Japan has turned this Convention into a big business, exploiting already highly endangered and threatened wildlife!
The meeting approved conservation plans to protect Asian big cats as well as rhinos. It also managed to stop the proposals from Zambia and Tanzania to have a one-off sales of their ivory stocks, because it has been proven that these kind of sales increase the poaching activities. Moreover, it would go against the agreement reached during CoP14 that should ensure no ivory off-sales for the next 9 years.
I lobbyed as CATCA to stop this proposals for the one time ivory sales from Tanzania and Zambia, as well as the proposal from Zambia to down-list their elephants. I used my CATCA Reports on the e-trade on elephant ivory in Latin America, which proved to be a great informative tool and they were in huge demand by the delegations. I movilized my contacts in the governments and secured a few delegations within the EU to go against the elephant proposals. The results were that the EU had to abstain during the voting, saving about 38,000 African elephants.
I was asked by the Head of Delegation of Kenya (Kenya was the lider of the African Elephant Coalition with 24 countries defending the elephant at this CITES CoP), to lobby with their Minister of Environment and Forestry. It was a great honour to have such request so I lobbyied with the Minister in an exhaustive way for 3 days. At the end I received a personal thank you and warm congratulations from the Ministers of Environment of Kenya and Congo, as well as from all the 26 delegates of Kenya and the delegation of Sierra Leone, for the intensive lobbying done together with them in a desperate race against the Tanzania and Zambia proposals voting time.
I secured support for all the shark proposals from the African Elephant Coalition (24 countries) and other Latin American and European countries. Unfortunately that wasn't enough. During this lobbying I had my share in getting the Satanic beetle protected, when I got the African Elephant Coalition to support this Proposal.
Some other species that got in the CITES Appendices were 24 lesser plants, reptile and insect species, the red eyed frogs and the spiny-tailed iguanas.
During the COP16, I also introduced the Report of E-trade on protected CITES species in Ecuador. It was well received, as it shows the large demand and trade in a country that has not a very well developed internet trade yet in Latin America, compared to the rest of the Latin American countries.
The CITES Secretariat as well the Head of Interpol, several enforcement authorities and heads of delegations, congratulated me for the two formal CATCA Reports.
Ericka Ceballos
March 2010
Doha, Qatar
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