Oceana has urged the international community to strictly follow the Monaco proposal to enlist the Atlantic bluefin tuna on Appendix I of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Floral (CITES). Oceana senior campaign director David Allison told Gulf Times, told that they will be meeting with representatives of delegates personally and explaining with them the reasons for the proposal and our support that these species are not just in trouble, they are being threatened with extinction.
It is fact that the population of tuna species in the Atlantic Ocean has drastically went down by between 80-85 percent. Therefore Monaco proposal is very important for the conservation of the species. He called for a regional body that would be saddled with the responsibilities of managing the bluefin tuna fisheries for the international market. He told that CITES is really the last best chance to have a sustainable population of bluefin tuna in the future.
It is true that getting a CITES designation is very difficult as there are rigid rules that must be addressed in order to get species listed on CITES appendix. Allison informed that the Japanese did not want to allow an international body to manage the trade in a species that was fetching them so much money. Oceana has been working on the bluefin tuna, sharks and sea corals preservation for more than 10 years.
Ocean calls for the reinforcement and reassurance from many countries that they believe have received some misinformation about the impact of designating these species in the CITES appendix.
