UNITED NATIONS, May 24 -- When nations and activists met this year about endangered species of sharks and Atlantic blue tuna, Japan lobbied against protections with conditional financial aid to small island states, and even sushi and shark fin soup receptions.
These stories were told Monday evening in the UN's new North Lawn building, as Jacques Cousteau's grandson spoke about seeing fewer and fewer sharks during his dives. . "We protect what we love," he quoted. But with sharks, given the perception of them as people killers, the phrase may not be helpful.
The event was sponsored by Palau, which had declared itself a shark sanctuary. A speech was given by its Permanent Representative to the UN, Stuart Beck, who is decidedly not from Palau. But as his deputy later explained to Inner City Press, he was Palau's lawyer even before it became independent.
Beck testified that Palau "championed adding four sharks to the CITES list of endangered species. Despite winning the majority of votes on all four, we could not overcome the obstructive super majority requirement."
Experts in the crowd uniformly trashed the role of Japan. It was ironic, as elsewhere in the North Lawn building Japan was presenting itself as an anti-nuclear hero. Janus face, forked tongue, one said.
Earlier on Monday, the Pew Environment Group held a press conference urging Regional Fisheries Management Organizations to do more about illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Inner City Press asked about such fishing off the coasts of Somalia and Western Sahara.
Pew's Kristin Von Kistowski cautioned against excusing piracy in terms of illegal fishing. She added that international fleets harm coastal communities in Western Africa.
Susan Lieberman of Pew said that European Union fleets are overfishing, and the the depletion of fish stock off Somalia may have played a role in driving former fishermen to piracy. Video here, from Minute 36.
This stood in welcome contrast to the commander of the EUNAVFOR ships, who earlier this month was dismissive of Somali claims about illegal fishing. Click here for that.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/iuu1fish052410.html
