The United Nations wildlife trade body has decided to control on commerce in precious coral, harvested in the Mediterranean and the western Pacific and then crafted into jewelry mainly in Italy. There is a proposal which enlists the deep-water, reef-forming organism under Appendix II of the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), meeting in Doha until Thursday, would require nations to track exports and show that coral is extracted sustainably.
The proposal is co-sponsored by the United States and the European Union, the move is opposed by Japan, which last week lobbied successfully to shoot down a bid to ban trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna. In the meeting several new measures were directed which targets seven species in the Coralliidae family, one growing in the Mediterranean and the others in the western Pacific, including Hawaii.
Kristian Teleki, a marine biologist at Sea Web, a conservation group, told that some 30-50 metric tons of Coralliidae are harvested annually from the Mediterranean and the Pacific to meet consumer demand. Destructive fishing methods and over-harvesting have reduced worldwide catches by at least 85 percent in the past three decades, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Teleki informed that three years ago, a nearly identical proposal came before Cites at its last meeting. At that time, the Appendix II listing was initially approved, only to be overturned during the final minutes of the 12-day meeting in a secret ballot. Sue Lieberman, policy director for the Pew Environment Group in Washington, said that Italy and some Italian dealers used strong-arm tactics on small countries.
