The 16th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES

Earlier this month, on March 3-14th, the 16th Meeting of the conference of the Parties to CITES was held in Bangkok, Thailand. For those of you still not up to date of the many acronyms of environmental sciences, CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species.  

CITES is an international agreement designed to regulate the trade of wild plants and animals in order to protect species from over-exploitation. Enacted in 1975 as part of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the legally-binding treaty was signed by 176 nations and effectively put international controls on the imports and exports of all listed species. By signing this treaty, the nations also pledged to adopt domestic legislation in order to preserve CITES restrictions on a national level. CITES has since offered varying degrees of protection for over 30,000 species of plants and animals (http://www.cites.org/). 

So why was the 16th meeting so important?

It was this meeting where manta rays and five shark species (the porbeagle, oceanic white tip, and the great, scalloped, and smooth hammerhead) were added to the protection list. The ruling is considered monumental in the preservation of these oceanic species because it will restrict the international trade of shark fins and manta ray products typically used in traditional Chinese cooking. 

Due to the demand for shark fin soup, various shark populations have been decimated worldwide. There are estimates that approximately 100 million sharks are slaughtered every year, primarily to support the global fin trade. Because many sharks and manta rays are transient animals, they have succumbed to the "Tragedy of the Commons," meaning that fishing regulations and harvest quotas are difficult to manage. Thus, the 16th meeting of conference of the Parties of CITES will be remembered as a historic event in marine conservation.

Photo by Brian Skerry/NOAA

I conclude with great hope that the world will preserve these beautiful ocean creatures by enforcing the ruling in the years to come. Hooray for sharks and manta rays!