State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2004 - Library

Selected issues facing fishers and aquaculturists
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• Carcharodon carcharias (white shark) to be included in Appendix II with a zero
annual export quota;
• Cheilinus undulatus (humphead wrasse) to be included in Appendix II;
• Lithophaga lithophaga (Mediterranean date mussel) to be included in Appendix II;
• Helioporidae spp., Tubiporidae spp., Scleractinia spp., Milleporidae spp. and
Stylasteridae spp.; an amendment of the annotation to these taxa to exclude fossils
from the provisions of the Convention.
The panel’s recommendations were forwarded to the CITES Secretariat and made
available to the Parties to CITES in accordance with Article XV. The recommendations
were noted by CoP 13 although they were not consistently adhered to in the final
decisions, in which it was agreed to list white sharks (without the constraint of a zero
quota), humphead wrasse and Mediterranean date mussel in Appendix II.
FAO Members have also been concerned about the implications for exporting,
re-exporting and importing states of the listing of commercially exploited aquatic
species. An expert consultation was therefore held in May 2004 to consider the
following issues:
• the fundamental principles of CITES Article II, especially paragraph 2(b), the “lookalike”
clause;
• Annex 3 of CITES Res. Conf. 9.24, which deals with split-listing and aquaculture
issues;
• the administrative and monitoring implications of listing and down-listing,
including the implications of Annex 4 of Res. Conf. 9.24 in this context.
Consideration of this issue included an analysis of the socio-economic impact of
listing on selected commercially exploited aquatic species.
In addition, a second expert consultation was held to address a number of legal issues
related to CITES and fisheries. These included:
• the application of the phrase “introduction from the sea” used in the definition
of trade in Article I of the CITES Convention, including consideration of the
administrative costs associated with the various interpretations of this term.
• an analysis of the legal implications of the existing CITES listing criteria and the
CITES Convention itself in relation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and
related international law covering fisheries.
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Many, if not most, of the world’s fisheries are currently caught in a dilemma. A number
of the resources on which they depend are overexploited and it is widely accepted that
there is considerable excess capacity in the fishing fleets of the world – but fisheries are
still important sources of food security, employment and other economic benefits. The
fishing nations of the world are attempting to address these problems in a responsible
manner. In terms of its mandate, CITES clearly has a role in solving some of the
problems confronting fisheries, although countries differ in their views on the extent of
that role.
When FAO first became involved in working with CITES, the fisheries agency or
agencies and the CITES agency in individual countries were frequently located in
different departments and did not communicate with each other to a meaningful
extent. Arguably, the most significant progress that has been made over the last
five to six years has been the breaking down of such barriers in many countries, thus
encouraging the greater involvement of the fisheries agencies in CITES regarding
matters of relevance to them. In addition, revision of the criteria so as to bring them
further into line with the best practices in fisheries science and stock assessment,
coupled with a rigorous and transparent review process, should result in betterinformed
decisions on commercially exploited aquatic species being made by CITES
Parties, thereby contributing to the improved effectiveness of CITES in fulfilling its role
and mandate.