Tuna, tuskers, tigers priority at wildlife meeting

The only UN body with the power to ban trade in endangered animals and plants began a triennial meeting in Doha yesterday with Atlantic bluefin tuna, African elephants and polar bears on the docket.

Besides the proposal to stop cross-border commerce in bluefin tuna - fiercely contested by sushi-loving Japan - the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will also vote on less stringent protection for several types of shark and their lookalikes.

Up to 73 million of the open-water predators are killed every year for their fins, a prestige food eaten mainly in China and Chinese communities around the world.

Nearly 150 of the 175 member states are attending the 13-day conference, the first to be held in the Middle East, organisers said.

Boosting the Cites budget - at less than €3.6 million the smallest of the major UN conventions - is the first item on the agenda.

"In the absence of necessary funding, Cites will not be able to fully exploit its great potential," Secretary General Willem Wijnstekers said in an opening statement.

"We seriously risk to let down not only the many animals and plant species to which we attach such great importance, but the developing world in its struggle to conserve wildlife."

Until now, the forum was best known for measures on restricting commerce in charismatic species, including big cats, great apes and elephants.

But for the first time a marine species - bluefin tuna - takes centre stage.

Despite self-imposed quotas, high-tech fisheries have drained tuna stocks in the Mediterranean and Western Atlantic by as much as 80 per cent since 1970.

Backed by the EU and the US, Monaco is leading a move to list the 100,000-dollar-a-head fish on Cites' Appendix I, which bans international trade.

"Taking on commercially valuable marine species - trade worth billions of dollars - is a big step for Cites," said Sue Lieberman, policy director for the Pew Environment Group in Washington.

A proposal by Tanzania and Zambia would reopen trade in ivory, currently under a nine-year moratorium that started in 2008.

Most other African nations oppose the move, backing a competing measure that would extend the ban by another decade.

Polar bears are also being considered for the top level of protection.

Attended by environmentalists, animal rights advocates, big business and governments, Cites seeks a sustainable balance between protection and commercial exploitation. Terrestrial flora and fauna have fallen victim to shrinking habitats, hunting and over-harvesting. Many ocean species have simply been eaten to the brink of viability.

The 42 proposals on the table must receive a two-thirds majority of those nations present to be adopted, and are then enforced by laws passed in member nations.

"We have nearly 34,000 species placed under our protection. You need scientific studies, legislation, enforcement, training for customs police, capacity building," said Juan Carlos Vasquez of Cites in pleading for a 16 per cent budget boost.