By Marlowe Hood
Doha - The UN wildlife trade body slapped down a trio of proposals on Tuesday to oversee cross-border commerce for sharks threatened with extinction through overfishing, sparking anger from conservationists.
The only marine species granted protection at a meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) was the temperate zone porbeagle, a shark fished for its meat.
Earlier, bids to impose a global trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna and to require export monitoring for seven species of precious coral both fell well short of the required two-thirds majority.
The shark species left exposed to regulated global commerce were the scalloped hammerhead, the oceanic white tip and the spiny dogfish.
Millions of hammerhead and whitetip are extracted from seas each year, mainly to satisfy a burgeoning appetite for sharkfin soup, a prestige food in Chinese communities around the world.
The US proposals were rejected by a narrow margin, opening the possibility that one or both could get a second hearing on Thursday when the 13-day conference ends.
Only decades ago, the two species were among the most common of the semi-coastal and open-water sharks.
But incidental catch and demand for fins has slashed populations by 90 percent in several regions.
The fish are often tossed back into the water after their precious fins have been sliced away.
The scalloped hammerhead is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as "vulnerable" globally, while the whitetip is "critically endangered" in the northwestern Atlantic, and "vulnerable" elsewhere.
Once the highest level of biomass in the Gulf of Mexico, the whitetip is 99 percent depleted there today, according to marine biologist Julia Baum.
China spoke against all the proposals in plenary session, saying some of the fins were impossible to distinguish and questioning the ability of CITES to carry out its rulings.
"Our experience has shown that control of these species at the borders would not be enforceable," a Chinese delegate said.
Japan led opposition to the four measures, arguing that management of shark populations should be left to regional fisheries groups, not CITES.
Conservationists counter that fishing for sharks is currently unregulated.
"The problem today is not there is serious mismanagement of trade in sharks, as for tuna, but that there is no management at all," said Sue Lieberman, policy director for the Washington-based Pew Environment Group.
They also point out that sharks are especially vulnerable to overfishing because most species take years to mature and have relatively few young.
The proposals called for listing on CITES' Appendix II, which requires countries to monitor exports and demonstrate that fishing is done in a sustainable manner.
The scientific panel of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recommend protection for all the species except the spiny dogfish which, along with the porbeagle, was also voted down at the last CITES meeting in 2007.
Fished for its meat not its fins, stocks of porbeagle - which gestates for nine months and can live up to 65 years - have collapsed to about ten percent of historic levels in the Mediterranean and the northeast Atlantic.
Conservation groups reacted angrily to the three "no" votes.
"It appears that science no longer matters," said Elizabeth Griffin of wildlife conservation group Oceana, based in Washington.
"CITES is not fulfilling its obligation to protect species threatened by international trade." - Sapa-AFP