WE Desk
PANAMA CITY: A summit on the international trade in Panama City regarding endangered species will decide on Thursday if to ratify a landmark proposal to protect sharks, an effort that would drastically restrict the profitable global shark fin trade.
The proposal would place scores of shark species from the requiem and the hammerhead families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
These species may not yet be vulnerable to extinction but may become so, except if their trade is closely controlled.
The issue was one that was mostly discussed at this year’s CITES Panama summit, with the proposal co-sponsored by the European Union and 15 other countries. The meeting that began on November 14 will be ended on November 26.
Huge number of shark species
Panamanian delegate Shirley Binder told AFP that If the meeting on Thursday becomes fruitful, it would be a momentous decision and for the first time CITES would be handling a huge number of shark species, almost 90 percent of the market number.
Shark fins, representing a market of about $500 million per year, can be sold for about $1,000 a kilogram in East Asia for use in shark fin soup.
Binder added that they hope all of this will (now) be adopted in plenary, as the plenary will also vote on ratifying the proposal to protect guitarfish, a species of ray.
Several delegations, including the host Panama, displayed stuffed toy sharks on their tables during the initial Committee debate.
Conservation organizations
After the fiery debate, the request to protect requiem sharks went into a vote, harvesting above the needed threshold and calming the waters for the later hammerhead shark debate.
Directors and delegates of conservation organizations, who are present there as observers, are confident about the ratification of both proposals.
Chilean delegate Ricardo Saez told AFP that they hope that nothing extraordinary happens and these entire families of sharks are ratified for inclusion in Annex II.
Major shark extinction crisis
Earlier, the Director of shark protection for the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told AFP that the world is presently in the middle of a major shark extinction crisis.
During the committee debate, Japan proposed that the trade restriction should be brought down to nineteen species of requiem sharks while Peru requested for the blue shark to be set aside from the list, however, the suggestions were not accepted.
Participants at the summit considered fifty-two proposals to change species protection levels.
CITES, which came into force in 1975, has set international trade rules for more than thirty-six wild species and its signatories comprise 183 countries and the European Union. – APP
