Marine Wildlife

Many marine species are at risk from overfishing, climate change and harmful fishing methods. Endangered sea turtles are caught unintentionally, as bycatch, by fishing boats around the world. Shark populations are plummeting as they are killed for their meat, fins and liver oil. Coveted seafood species including tuna and salmon are threatened by overfishing, and … Read more

CITES: A tragedy for the oceans

Today it’s all about last-day expectations. All important discussions have been put off for today’s plenary. The reopening of the bluefin tuna, sharks and corals debates will depend upon the support of the parties. Today we may obtain more protection for more species… or be doomed to lose them. Finally CITES failed to ban the … Read more

CITES: Proposal to protect porbeagle was agreed!

Today all four shark proposals were debated. Unfortunately, only one was approved. The proposals to protect hammerhead sharks, oceanic whitetips and the spurdog were rejected. The good news is that the proposal to protect the porbeagle was agreed! This is a large, migratory and warm blooded shark. It´s meat is heavily consumed in Europe. The … Read more

CITES: Sharks maybe?

Tomorrow proposals for protection of 8 shark species will be discussed. We are very excited cause it seems that there is a will to reach an agreement. Some fishing countries, like Spain, seem to be in favour of these proposals and everyone, including countries envolved in shark fisheries and trade, aknowledge that there is a … Read more

CITES: Bad day for corals

This morning, Sunday, we were back to work. The EU finally organized a coordination meeting wiht the NGOs, thanks pushing by our colleague from the office in Brussels! We didn´t get much information out of it. Bluefin didn´t get discussed at all, sharks were all good since the EU supports all proposals, and the same … Read more

CITES: Out at sea

Last evening we went on a boat ride on a traditional wooden fishing boat. Well, the boat was so traditional that the motors broke and we were out at sea, drifting away, for a while before they got fixed. We finally ended up back at port, safe and sound! Today we went to a delgate … Read more