AC26 Inf. 8 (English Only / Únicamente En Inglés / Seulement En Anglais)
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AC26 Inf. 8 (English only / únicamente en inglés / seulement en anglais) CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES OF WILD FAUNA AND FLORA ____________ Twenty-sixth meeting of the Animals Committee Geneva (Switzerland), 15-20 March 2012 and Dublin (Ireland), 22-24 March 2012 REPORT ON A METHOD TO IDENTIFY HIGH RISK COMMERCIALLY-EXPLOITED AQUATIC ORGANISMS IN TRADE AND AN ANALYSIS OF THE POTENTIAL APPLICATION OF MEAS 1. This information document has been submitted by the United Kingdom in relation to agenda item 14*. 2. The attached report describes work commissioned by the UK Scientific Authority (Fauna) from TRAFFIC International and which was referred to in the European Union submission (AC26 Doc. 16.2 Annex European Union p. 6) in response to Notification 2011/049. 3. The work sought to identify, by a process of risk assessment, those commercially exploited aquatic organisms, including sharks, at greatest potential risk from over-exploitation and which might then be subject to further scrutiny to determine if they would benefit from measures under CITES or the Convention on Migratory Species to reduce those risks. The work might thus help to inform the work of the Animals Committee under Res. Conf. 12.6 (Rev. CoP15) with respect to sharks. 4. The report was examined by a 2-day peer review workshop by invited experts which took place in Aberdeen (United Kingdom) from 26-27 September 2011. The report of this peer review workshop is provided as an Addendum attached to the report. Both reports are available at: http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-6120. 5. Based on recommendations made at the peer review workshop on ways to improve the method and to apply it further, additional work was commissioned from TRAFFIC to assess the vulnerability of a single taxonomic group, namely sharks. The draft report of this work is provided in AC26 Inf. 9. * The geographical designations employed in this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the CITES Secretariat or the United Nations Environment Programme concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The responsibility for the contents of the document rests exclusively with its author. AC26 Inf. 8 – p. 1 AC26 Inf. 8 – p. 1 Annex JNCC Report No 453 Fish and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs): developing a method to identify high risk commercially-exploited aquatic organisms in trade and an analysis of the potential application of MEAs Sant, G., Goodman, G., Crook, V., Lack, M. & Oldfield, T.E.E March 2012 © JNCC, Peterborough 2012 ISSN 0963-8091 For further information please contact: Joint Nature Conservation Committee Monkstone House City Road Peterborough PE1 1JY Corresponding author Thomasina Oldfield TRAFFIC International 219a Huntingdon Road Cambridge, UK, CB3 0DL [email protected] This report should be cited as: Sant, G., Goodman, G., Crook, V., Lack, M. & Oldfield, T.E.E. 2012. Fish and Multilateral Environmental Agreements: developing a method to identify high risk commercially-exploited aquatic organisms in trade and an analysis of the potential application of MEAs. JNCC Report No 453 Acknowledgements Many individuals and institutions contributed to this project, in particular, supplying data. First, we would like to extend our thanks to the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation who provided us with both data and guidance on their methodology “Ecological Risk Assessment for Effects of Fishing”, which was adapted and used in this project. Special thanks also go to FishBase, The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and The University of British Columbia for providing species and value data. Furthermore, we would like to thank the experts that provided species and value information, many of them members of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Specialist Groups, as well as SeaLifeBase and other scientists and experts who have volunteered their time and expertise to this process. We would like to thank the staff members of TRAFFIC who assisted in this process, including: Valerie Craig, Markus Burgener, Stephanie von Meibom, Teresa Mulliken, Steven Broad and Julie Gray. Finally we would like to extend our thanks to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, in particular Vin Fleming, Alison Littlewood and James Williams who provided funding and guidance without which this project would not have been possible. Foreword The following report was commissioned by JNCC to explore means by which a strategic overview could be taken of the risks posed to aquatic organisms (fish and invertebrates) by commercial exploitation for international trade. In doing so, it might then be possible to identify those species at greatest potential risk from over-exploitation and to seek measures to reduce those risks, involving multi-lateral environmental agreements such as CITES or CMS where appropriate. In developing this method, the authors identified a number of practical difficulties in applying the approach taken. As a result, an expert workshop was held to provide peer review of the method and to identify ways in which it might be improved. The outcome of this workshop, with its various recommendations, forms an addendum to this report; the two should be read in combination. In order to take forward the workshop recommendations, a further application of the method, with refinements, to a single taxonomic group (namely sharks) has been commissioned from TRAFFIC. The outcome of this will be reported separately. Vin Fleming February 2012 2 Contents Executive summary ............................................................................................................. 5 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 8 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................. 8 1.2 Aims and objectives ................................................................................................ 9 2 Approach .....................................................................................................................10 3 Selection of commercially exploited species ............................................................11 3.1 Trade in fish products .............................................................................................11 3.2 Identifying commercially exploited species and/or species in international trade ....12 3.3 Identifying migratory species ..................................................................................13 3.4 Selecting a subset of species .................................................................................13 3.4.1 Selecting species from higher taxonomic groups which were selected from the FAO catch list ................................................................................................................14 4 Vulnerability .................................................................................................................16 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................16 4.2 Collating information on life history to determine vulnerability .................................17 4.3 Scoring for vulnerability ..........................................................................................18 4.4 Results ...................................................................................................................19 4.5 Discussion ..............................................................................................................21 5 Value ............................................................................................................................23 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................23 5.2 Identifying unit price ...............................................................................................23 5.3 Scoring for value ....................................................................................................24 5.4 Identifying high-value species ................................................................................24 5.5 Results ...................................................................................................................24 5.6 Discussion of value data limitations ........................................................................25 6 Violability .....................................................................................................................27 6.1 Selection of species ...............................................................................................27 6.2 Assessing violability ...............................................................................................27 6.2.1 Characteristics of the species/fisheries ......................................................28 6.2.2 Management of aquatic organisms ..............................................................31 6.2.3 Compliance measures ..................................................................................37 6.3 Scoring for violability ...........................................................................................38 6.4 Results ..................................................................................................................40