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(CITES)
First there was the failure to place a ban on bluefin tuna. The decline and ultimate loss of this high trophic level species will reverberate throughout oceanic food web networks and human economic networks. This was followed by the failure to control international trade in red and pink corals (read the CITES press releases here), even though the major backer was the United States. In the same consideration, however, renewed sale of elephant ivory by Zambia and Tanzania was rightfully blocked. I can’t help but get the feeling that perhaps, if tuna and corals were embedded in the mentality of circus nostalgia to the extent that elephants are, or if Zambia and Tanzania counted as much on the global scale as do Canada and Japan (opponents of the ban on bluefin fishing), these decisions would have worked out a bit differently.
CITES rejected regulations on shark fishing today too. This quote from Stuart Beck, Palau’s ambassador to the UN, is my favorite.
“I am sure that, properly prepared, bald eagle is delicious. But, as civilized people, we simply do not eat it.”