According to the commission searching of Member States is on in order to reach a common EU position for the CITES meeting in March. The conference of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will take place in Doha, Qatar, on 13-25 March.
It is informed that the first move to include bluefin tuna in the CITES Appendix 1, in effect meaning an international trade ban, was made by Monaco last fall. Last November, meeting in Brazil, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) decided to reduce the annual Atlantic blue-fin tuna fishing quota, but fell short of coming up with a ban – a “sell-out”, according to environmental organisations.
In a joint press conference Commissioners Maria Damanaki (Fisheries) and Janez Potocnik (Environment) stressed that overfishing of the bluefin tuna, a stock species for sushi lovers all over the world, is largely driven by international trade. According to the Commissioners the CITES listing should not take effect immediately, but be delayed until next year, giving ICCAT time to come up with the latest scientific information available. Environmentalists welcomed the Commission’s decision by and large, but criticised the delay until 2011
