Oceanic
whitetip, porbeagle, and hammerhead sharks, and Manta rays get protection
March 2013. Five species of sharks and two species of mantra rays will now be
subject to international trade regulation under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.
The rays have
been included on Appendix II for the first time, meaning that trade will be
restricted, and exporters will need permits when trading them to other
countries.
Manta ray populations have been declining because of the demand for medicine, human consumption and as bait. They also have a limited reproductive capacity, and are easy to catch in large numbers because they ‘aggregate’.
Manta ray populations have been declining because of the demand for medicine, human consumption and as bait. They also have a limited reproductive capacity, and are easy to catch in large numbers because they ‘aggregate’.
Tourism around
mantas brings in around US$100 million a year. This would obviously be hit if
manta populations decrease further.
Three
proposals were successful in listing five shark species under Appendix II of
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora).
Under Appendix
II strict measures will be put in place to regulate the international trade in
the fins and meat of the species concerned. Governments have been given up to
18 months to implement the new measures.
Five species—Oceanic
Whitetip, Scalloped Hammerhead, Great Hammerhead, Smooth Hammerhead and
Porbeagle sharks—all obtained the two-thirds majority amongst voting
governments to become included under Appendix II of the Convention.
They include
the first sharks to be listed under CITES because of concerns over the level of
trade in their fins. The Porbeagle is primarily traded for its meat. The global
value of the trade in shark fin industry is estimated by the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organization to be around $478 million per year.
The sharks
discussed at today’s meeting are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because
they are all slow growing, late to mature, long-living and produce few young,
which means it is difficult for populations to recover from overfishing.
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