U.N. Group Rejects Shark Protections
PARIS — Delegates to a United Nations conference on endangered species voted down three of four proposals to protect sharks on Tuesday, handing another victory to Japan, China and countries opposed to the involvement of the international authorities in regulation of ocean fish.The nations gathered in Doha, Qatar, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, rejected proposals that would have required countries to strictly regulate — but not ban — trade in several species of scalloped hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and spiny dogfish sharks.The hammerhead and whitetip proposals, introduced by the United States and the tiny Micronesian island of Palau, received majority backing. But the treaty behind the conference, abbreviated as Cites, requires that measures be approved by two-thirds of the delegates who are voting.A proposal from the European Union and Palau to protect porbeagle sharks squeaked by with a vote of 86 to 42, with 8 abstentions — a winning margin of a single vote. All of the votes were by secret ballot.“We will continue to pursue our efforts to protect sharks from eradication by the decadent and cruel process of shark-finning,” Stuart Beck, Palau’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement. “I am sure that, properly prepared, bald eagle is delicious. But, as civilized people, we simply do not eat it.”China, by far the world’s largest consumer of the cartilaginous fish, for sharkfin soup, and Japan, which has battled to keep the convention from being extended to any marine species, led the opposition.“This is not about trade issues, but fisheries enforcement,” Masanori Miyahara, Japan’s top fisheries negotiator, was quoted by The Associated Press as telling delegates. “Poaching is a big problem.”Juan Carlos Vásquez, a spokesman for the United Nations convention, said that the votes on the hammerhead and the porbeagle — a close relative of the great white shark that is prized for its meat — could be reopened on Thursday and possibly overturned at the final session of the conference because the margin of passage was so narrow.Most of the other conference votes would be likely to stand without challenge, he said.Tom Strickland, the head of the United States delegation, said in a statement that Tuesday’s votes were “a major loss for marine conservation.”On Monday, delegates voted to uphold a 21-year ban on international trade in ivory, rejecting efforts by Tanzania and Zambia to sell part of their stocks. Last week, the conference opposed an outright ban on international trade in bluefin tuna. A proposal to extend trade controls to red and pink corals was also voted down.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/science/earth/24shark.html?ref=earth