• Environmental organizations and the artisanal fishermen are working to develop the first recommendations to the Chilean government for the nomination in Appendix II of CITES, of Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish populations.
• At the same time, the organizations recommended the rejection of the proposal regarding the down listing of southern minke whale from Appendix I to II, proposal supported by whaling nations.

Valparaiso, Chile, April 17, 2002 (Ecocéanos News)— Citizen’s organizations, coastal communities and the government of Chile -fourth country in the fishing industry and second producer and exporter of fish meal and farmed salmon- started to talk about and to analyze international trade and conservation of fisheries threatened by overexploitation and illegal industrial fishing; as well as the current efforts to strengthen international regulations to protect whales, penguins, sharks and marine turtles.

Citizen´s organizations and artisinal fishermen have join forces to discuss the agenda that will contain the position of the Chilean government, host of the 12^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (COP-12 of CITES).

The COP-12 will meet in Santiago, Chile, from November 3^rd to 15^th and it will gather more than 1800 governmental delegates, non governmental organizations and representatives of the industry and trade.

The environmental organizations related to the conservation and management of the resources and marine ecosystems, which locally include The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), Centro de Conservacion Cetacea (CCC), Centro Ecoceanos, Codeff, Greenpeace –with the support of international organizations like IWC/LatinAmerica, Greenpeace International, The Antarctica Project and Humane Society International-, send the first two technical and scientific recommendations to the representative of Sernapesca (National Fisheries Service) at the Executive Committee of CITES-Chile, after having a technical meeting in Valparaiso last week.

The recommendations suggest to the chilean government listing both Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides y D. mawsoni respectively) in CITES Appendix II, and request the chilean government to support the conservation of several species of whales by maintaining these species in the Appendix I of the Convention.

The Chilean government must present the final proposals to the CITES Executive Secretariat before June 6. After that date a negotiation process begins, at a national and international level, in order to reach agreements during the next COP-12 in November.

PATAGONIAN AND ANTARCTIC TOOTHFISH

Listing these species in CITES Appendix II means that the international trade will be regulated, in order to assure that their exploitation will guarantee that taking, trade and consumption are carried out in a responsible, supervised and sustainable manner. To do so, a combined control for the export and export would be implemented in the 176 countries member of CITES.

Since the 1990’s populations of these species are being subject of a huge pressure by industrial illegal fleets that operate in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic waters, fishing under flags of convenience. These fleets have already collapsed some local stocks, and are threatening both the commercial and biological viability of the remaining stocks; and also questioning the legal and regulated fishing activities carried out by artisinal fishermen in chilean territorial waters.

The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has unsuccessfully tried to supervise Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing activities in the Convention area, through the implementation of the Catch Documentation Scheme (CDS) which regulates the international trade of these species.

For Cristian Pérez, Coordinator of ASOC in Latin America, "listing these species in Appendix II of CITES should be viewed as a complement to the measures adopted by CCAMLR in relation to trade, and this fact would extend these regulations to every other country that is not CCAMLR Member, but is a CITES Party.

In relation to CDS, Pérez declared "this tool is limited in its geographical coverage to CCAMLR waters, but CITES does not present this restriction".

The representative of ASOC concluded that "listing these species in Appendix II of CITES , should not be seen as a restriction to the international trade, but quite the contrary, its correct implementation both should improve and protect the trade of the legally taken captures, as well as it would restrict the access to international markets of toothfish illegally caught".

SOUTHERN MINKE WHALE

Regarding the proposals and requests presented to the government, Elsa Cabrera, director of CCC indicated that "they are part of a previous work carried out by the civil organizations and the national governmental authorities in charge of marine issues, with a view to the 54^th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC)".

The director of CCC declared that "the position of the government, as well as the Chilean community has been historically favorable towards the conservation of whales. Both at IWC and CITES, Chile, Brazil and Argentina had voted in favor of the continuation of the ban on commercial whaling implemented by the IWC in 1986; and had rejected earlier proposals of Japan and Norway, related to the down listing of certain populations of whales from CITES Appendix I to II, in order to reopen the international commercial whaling of these species".

Finally Cabrera added "we are confident that the government once again will adopt a position to guarantee the conservation of the great diversity of whales present in Chilean and international waters. The recognition of the IWC as the organism in charge of the management of whale populations worldwide; and the application of the precautionary principle to the proposals that will be presented by Japan and Norway – given the high degree of scientific uncertainty regarding the conservation status of whale populations – are strong reasons for the government to strengthen its current position".

The civil organizations CCC, IWC/LatinAmerica and Centro Ecoceanos have been developing since the beginning of the present year an exchange of information with the Department of the Sea of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a view to the next IWC meeting in may, a previous step to the next CITES meeting in November.

All these dynamics are inserted in the work meetings that civil organizations – gathered in the ‘Coalition for the Defense of the Sea, Chile -CITES 2002’-, have held with the government and that consider future meetings for the presentation of new proposals and the analisis of the information that sustain the presented requests. *******END*********