Wild Kingdom safer for some

International delegates extend protection for whales, elephants

May 3, 2000
Web posted at: 11:40 p.m. EST (0340 GMT)

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From Correspondent Gary Strieker

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Two species of endangered whales and elephants will continue to receive international protection, but three types of sharks will need to fend for themselves.

That's what representatives from 150 delegations from various countries decided at an international summit in Kenya convened to make decisions about protecting threatened and endangered species.

The representatives hailed from countries that have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES.

Proposals affecting trade of many kinds of animals and plants were on the agenda, but none was more controversial than the items involving elephants.

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The CITES agreement has banned international trade in elephant ivory for more than a decade. However, at the conference, four Southern African countries with large elephant populations applied for approval to sell ivory every year to Japan. Kenya and other nations strongly oppose the request.

"The ivory trade would stimulate laundering of ivory through all the illegal markets across the world," said Nehemiah Rotich of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Finally, in a remarkable compromise, the Southern Africans withdrew their ivory proposals. African delegates agreed to monitor elephant poaching until the ivory question is raised again at the next CITES conference in two years.

Whales proved to be another divisive issue. Japan and Norway sought approval for commercial hunting of some populations of gray and minke whales. But delegates said no.

"I'm very pleased to see none of the proposals got even a simple majority; quite a big vote against them," Naoko Funahashi of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said.

In another rejection, delegates refused Cuba permission to sell a stockpile of hawksbill turtle shells to Japan. All international trade in marine turtles is illegal under the CITES treaty.

But conservationists lost when delegates rejected proposals for trade restrictions on three shark species -- whale sharks, basking sharks and great white -- despite evidence that high demand in Asia for shark fins is threatening them.

"It's really frustrating to see that major fishing industries from Asia, Scandinavia and Latin America are really pushing countries' delegates to not accept the necessity for protection of sharks," Peter Peuschel of Greenpeace International said.

The conference considered other wildlife trade issues, including those affecting tigers, bears and the growing commercial trade in bushmeat, which threatens wild populations of gorillas and chimpanzees in Central Africa. New roads in Africa provide access to areas that were previously out of reach and hunters are killing monkeys, gorillas and bonobos and selling their flesh known as bushmeat.

Most of these are critical wildlife conservation issues that will be on the agenda again at the next CITES conference in 2002.