Proposals to limit trading of fish rejected at global conference

The night before officials from 175 countries in Doha, Qatar, were to decide whether the world should stop trading Atlantic bluefin tuna to halt its precipitous decline, the Japanese ambassador hosted a reception for a select group of delegates at his residence.

On the menu was one of his nation’s most coveted delicacies: bluefin sushi and sashimi. And the next day, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted to allow trading of bluefin tuna to continue across the globe, unchecked.

The world’s largest conservation conference, which ended Thursday, provided new protections for everything from an Iranian salamander to Latin American tree frogs and a rare beetle. But it also made one thing clear: When it comes to valuable marine species, protection has its limits.

The unique attributes of marine life — that these species cross national boundaries and provide sustenance and profits for countries large and small — make them harder to regulate than land species. And despite a concerted push by activists and the Obama administration, environmentalists were not able to overcome the stiff opposition of delegates who see fishing restrictions as a threat to their nations’ socioeconomic fabric.

“CITES was always a place where countries came together and based on science, restricted trade for the sake of conservation,” said Susan Lieberman, who directs international policy for the Pew Environment Group and has attended the conference since 1989. “This time, they restricted conservation for the sake of trade.”

Delegates rejected every proposal for trade restrictions on commercially valuable marine species — including ones on bluefin tuna, the polar bear, and multiple species of coral and sharks. On Thursday they overturned the one trade restriction they had imposed on porbeagle sharks earlier in the week.

Japan campaigned vigorously against the measures, and several small coastal nations said protections would impose too heavy an economic and regulatory burden on them.

“Fisheries issues are very complex in terms of management and control. It is not as simple as terrestrial plants and animals,” said Grenada’s chief fisheries officer, Justin Rennie, in a phone interview from Doha. He added that while his country tries to be responsible when it comes to fishing, “countries are asking us to make certain sacrifices, both economic and social sacrifices.”

Thomas L. Strickland, U.S. assistant secretary of the interior for fish, wildlife and parks, who led the American delegation, said the arguments about the financial downside to species protection “were very loud and emphatic at the conference.”

“They tend to have more resonance when the economic times are tough,” Strickland said, though he said the United States and its allies would continue to press their case in the future.

CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers issued a statement noting that the conference accepted two dozen proposals, including protections for several plants in Madagascar, and rejected an attempt to loosen trade restrictions on African elephants.

“To say that the conference was a disaster is simply an exaggeration,” he said, and pointed to the “good lesson” that “biological diversity cannot be incompatible with . . . sustainable development.”

But the two-week face-off, which frequently pitted the United States, European Union and tiny islands such as Palau and the Maldives against Japan, China and allies such as Suriname and St. Kitts and Nevis, underscored the contentious nature of regulating the lucrative marine trade.

Environmentalists and the administration came armed with statistics, including those showing that the adult population of eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna has declined 74 percent over the past half-century, and that their western Atlantic counterpart has declined 82 percent in the past 40 years. Many of the shark species being considered had declined up to 99 percent compared with earlier levels.

But the Japanese government, whose 30-person CITES delegation was headed by Katsuhiro Machida, the Fisheries Agency’s director general, and Shinsuke Sugiyama, the Foreign Ministry’s director general for global issues, said regional fishery management agencies were better equipped to monitor such fish stocks.

The Japanese government spent eight months campaigning against the bluefin tuna listing, according to its officials, dispatching delegations to embassies across the globe.

The fish trade’s massive value changed the dynamics at the conference, according to Teresa Telecky, director of Humane Society International’s wildlife department. “There was a time when we didn’t do marine species, and we didn’t do timber species,” she said. “And we had a lot of success. There was a lot less of a commercial interest involved.”

But environmentalists — who noted that regional fishery organizations have never imposed harvest limits on sharks or corals, and have routinely ignored scientific recommendations when setting catch quotas for bluefin tuna — are now wondering where they can turn for marine species protection.

“This was really seen as the last resort,” said Oceana’s marine scientist and fisheries campaign manager, Elizabeth Griffin. “It’s something we’ll all have to think long and hard about.”

And while some nations may still covet imperiled marine species for food, Palau’s U.N. ambassador, Stuart Beck, said his country and others will work to end that practice.

“We will continue to pursue our efforts to protect sharks from eradication by the decadent and cruel process of shark finning,” said Beck, whose country sponsored all four shark proposals at CITES. “I am sure that, properly prepared, bald eagle is delicious. But, as civilized people, we simply do not eat it.”