Sharks (and Their Fins) Still Endangered
It has been a tough couple weeks for marine life, regulatorily. Representatives of 175 countries gathered in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting of the U.N.’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and voted to protect Latin American tree frogs and an Iranian salamander. What they refused to add to any endangered list were bluefin tuna and several species of sharks. “CITES was always a place where countries came together and based on science, restricted trade for the sake of conservation,” said Susan Lieberman, who directs international policy for the Pew Environment Group and has attended the conference since 1989. “This time, they restricted conservation for the sake of trade.”
Key lobbying against the listings came from Asia; the Japanese will do anything to protect its insatiable appetite for bluefin and the Chinese are for reasons no one other than they can decipher still want to be able to pay loads of cash for tasteless shark fins to dress up an always bland but ritualistic (and expensive) shark fin soup. Both nations – joined by African nations and even the EU (touting concern for its fishermen) – got what they wanted.
Can you say short-term vision? Bluefin populations have declined by 82 percent in the past 40 years and will be gone for good in the very near future. The fishing fleets that the Europeans and Africans say they are trying to protect? They will be completely out of business in a few years, right alongside the bluefin. Why not look forward a few decades and try and keep a healthy fish population alive in order to provide jobs for the long-term rather than allowing fish to continue to be taken without limits thus disappear sooner, and forever.
As for the sharks, in the past 40 years, numbers of many species have declined by 99 percent. There appears to be no end in sight for China’s demand for fins.
Political will on behalf of the environment was completely absent in Doha. The height of cynicism, according to a Washington Post story? The night before the vote on bluefin the Japanese ambassador to Qatar hosted a private reception, with a menu boasting bluefin sushi and sashimi.
Leave a comment