CITES 2002 Conference: CSI Was There

By Marta Hevia, CSI CITES Representative

Marta Hevia, of Argentina's Fundación CETHUS, represented CSI superbly at the 158-nation biennial Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Conference of Parties (COP12) in Chile last November, as CSI's incredibly gifted Kate O'Connell regretfully was unable to attend. Marta is an excellent example of how CSI empowers capable, committed advocates to fight for whales and dolphins in many ways, even directly at major international meetings of the world's nations. What's it like for a newcomer at the ever daunting CITES, where the fate of countless animals and plants is decided? Although new to the arena Marta emerged a champion, beginning what we believe will be a long career of impressive and productive advocacy in Latin America.

Marta may have been new to CITES, but she was very well prepared, assisted by many members of the 60-group Species Survival Network, of which CSI is a part, and accompanied by Vanesa Tossenberger, an experienced advocate for Fundación CETHUS. As you will read here in Marta's abridged report, cetaceans fared much better than anyone had predicted. Although she includes critical decisions, everything about CITES (except the ever-present politics) is available at http://www.cites.org/, so instead let's see it through the eyes of someone new.

After a tiny jump over the Andes, Vanesa and I arrived at Santiago from Argentina. The following morning, I went to the registration office, where they took an awful picture of me, which I had to show to the security personnel every time I went to the "Diego Portales" Convention Center because it was on the badge. After that, they gave me a bright red and black, really big bag with all the documents necessary for the following two weeks. That bag and I became inseparable during all CITES meeting. Every day more and more documents were added to the original ones. It was almost a punishment!

With all the requirements fulfilled, I was able to attend the very first CITES Plenary Session. I entered Room 1 (the biggest room in the Center) and there were people from almost everywhere in the world! As I was entering the room more and more people appeared in front of me speaking every language possible. CSI's place was at the very first line of the NGO's, so that placed me near the middle of the room. As the session began, all the protocolar speeches were said after which a reception buffet was offered.

On Monday the 4th a Plenary Session took place again. This time the rules of procedure were approved and the meeting's authorities were elected. They were as follows: Chair of the Conference: Sergio Bitar (Chile); Chair of Committee I: David Morgan (UK) and Chair of Committee II: Anne-Marie Delahunt (Australia). The agenda and the working program were adopted as well as the official admission of observers. After that the Chairs of the Standing Committee, the Animals Committee, the Plants Committee and the Nomenclature Committee introduced their respective reports. The Secretariat presented the Identification Manual for the species and many Parties asked for revision on some species.

On the evening of Tuesday the 5th, the Government of Chile organized a welcome reception for all the participants of the meeting. The buses specially prepared for the occasion took us to a beautiful place, half an hour from the Convention Center, called Borderio. A set of restaurants of different countries were side by side awaiting us. When I looked up to see what nationality our restaurant was I started to laugh for it was an Argentinian one. So there I was, with a bunch of vegetarian people, in an Argentinian restaurant ready to eat basically meat! Luckily the waiter was kind enough to bring salads for the vegetarians and I had my absolutely familiar meal. After dinner, there was a nice show and the night concluded with a band playing on stage and people dancing all together.

Back to the official agenda, I spent most of Committee's sessions in Committee II with the exception of those in Committee I when the cetacean issues were discussed.

The very most important days for me were those of the cetaceans' discussions. As these proposals were Nº3, Nº4 and Nº5 the came out pretty soon in the Conference. On November 7th afternoon, proposal CoP12.3 arose on the floor of Committee I: to transfer Tursiops truncatus ponticus from Appendix II to Appendix I. This proposal was introduced by Georgia. This Black Sea population of Bottlenose dolphins has been considered to be endangered and its number has been reduced due to trade, pollution, habitat degradation and fishery activities. This proposal opened an extensive debate which lasted approximately 2 hours. Parties that spoke in favor of the proposal were Monaco, Hungary, Tunisia, Israel, India and USA. Parties that spoke against it were the Russian Federation, Cuba, Canada, Ukraine, EU, Japan and St. Kitts and Nevis. They based their position on the "lack of adequate population data, and the fact that international trade was an insignificant threat compared with habitat degradation and incidental catch, and that the population did not meet the criteria for inclusion in Appendix I". After the Parties, WDCS was allowed to speak. Mark Simmonds took the microphone and noted that this population has genetic differences and is geographically isolated (from the Mediterranean population). He also stated that these dolphins are captured in nets and as their life in captivity is short more dolphins are needed to replace those who die. Then he added that in 1992 the IWC recognized that this population was highly reduced. In the end, he concluded that the one threat that could be corrected now was trade.

Once he finished Committee I Chairman called for a vote and for 8 votes short this proposal did not pass (the results were: 40 votes in favor, 31 against and 39 abstentions). It was really close to being accepted. So the Georgians had a lot of work to do to reach the Plenary Session and try to reopen this debate... and we were there to help.

The following day, also in Committee I, was the whales' turn. I woke up early, had breakfast with my new WDCS friends (Mark, Martin, Sue and Niki) and Vanesa from Fundación Cethus, as we do every day. I went to the daily SSN meeting and then got into Room 1. I took my seat and waited. The promise of an interesting debate was also the promise of a long morning... The session began a few minutes after 9:00. Around 9:30 the Chairman gave Japan permission to introduce their first whale proposal: Prop. CoP12.4 to transfer northern hemisphere stocks of Minke whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata (except the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Sea of Japan stock) from Appendix I to II, and together with this proposal they also introduced Prop. CoP12.5 to transfer Bryde's whale B. edeni western North Pacific stock from Appendix I to II, each proposal with an annotation and export quotas to meet the precautionary measures of Annex 4 of Resolution Conf. 9.24 as stated in official documents. Japan's delegation had introduced an amendment to each proposal which was a word change in the text. That was a technicality and now is not that important, but in that moment it was, because if the amendments had been accepted the intended Japan's whale products trade would have been wider. So, the very first discussion about whales was whether these amendments to the proposals were admissible or not. According to the Secretariat they were not because they "expanded the scope" of the proposals (and that is contrary to the Rules of Procedure of the Conference). The Chairman agreed with the Secretary General but as his ruling was challenged by Japan, the Chairman called for voting on these issues. Parties voted and as a result the amendments were rejected.

After all this discussion, we finally arrived at the original proposals themselves. That was a long debate. Many Parties were allowed to speak as well as many observers. Those in favor of the proposals stated that there was no scientific basis to keep these populations in Appendix I, that the IWC was a misfunctioning body and the moratorium was almost useless nowadays, among other things. Those against the proposals responded to every single point and noted that Resolution Conf. 11.4 recommends Parties not to trade in specimens from species or stocks protected from commercial whaling by the IWC. I have to pause here to point out that the stocks contained in these two proposals are actually protected by the IWC. Another important issue raised there was that an endangered stock of minke whale mixes with one of the stocks included in the proposal, and it would be impossible for whalers to differentiate between these two stocks.

It would be too long to write down the whole discussion. The most important thing here is to comment on what happened when the debate finished. As after more than 2 hours it was pretty obvious that no consensus was going to be reached within the debate, the Parties would have to vote. Japan asked for a secret ballot and also for the proposals to be voted separately. As the minimum Parties required was reached, the Conference was ready to carry on the first secret ballot of the meeting. It was a moment of nervousness. The parade of delegates towards the ballot box lasted what seemed to be forever to me. After the votes were counted, the result was announced: 41 votes in favor of the proposal, 54 against, 5 abstentions and 6 spoiled papers. That meant that the proposal about Minke whale was rejected!

Japan asked permission to speak. They said they were disappointed by the decision and then reminded the Parties that Prop. 12.5 included only one population of Bryde's whales. As they did before, they asked for secret ballot on this proposal. The same procedure was followed, but this time the Chairman announced that the session was going to close for lunch and that the results of the voting would be announced in the afternoon session. With that expectation floating in the air, we left the Conference Center and went to have lunch. The only thing we could do was just to wait.

At 2:00 p.m. we were back in Committee I to hear the result of the vote. That went as follows: 43 votes in favor, 63 against and 3 abstentions. As it needed 71 votes in favor (that is 2/3 of the Parties) to pass, the proposal was rejected.

So it was worth waiting and staying all morning in the middle of a tough debate for in the end whales did great and both species remained in Appendix I, unless in Plenary session the debate could be reopened.

In that way the first week passed. Regarding cetaceans we had two in favor and one against so far... Many other items were treated in both Committees and in Plenary Sessions but it would be too long to describe. I just want to point out that the other big, big debate concerned African elephants. Unfortunately they were not as lucky as whales. Neither were sharks so far.

On Tuesday the 12th we had to wear our formal clothing for the Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar was going to speak to the meeting. One of the things he pointed out was the relevance of sustainable development for future generations and the need for the global protection of biodiversity.

With only one day to go, on Thursday the 14th the Plenary had a lot of work to do. They had to confirm or reject the Committee's recommendations and there was the possibility that some of the proposals would arise again for further discussion. That was the case with the Black Sea Bottlenose Dolphin and the Minke whale.

In the case of the Black Sea Bottlenose Dolphin, Georgia introduced an amendment to its original proposal to list the species in Appendix II with zero export quota. Once again the strongest opponent was the Russian Federation, but this time many more countries spoke in favor of the Georgians, and the debate was again a long lasting one. The Russian Federation called for a secret ballot and so the vote was carried out that way. Luckily for the species, this time the result was clearly in favor of the amendment proposal: 86 in favor, 26 against and 10 abstentions. So now, undoubtedly, the proposal was accepted! This means that this population of Tursiops truncatus will receive further protection.

On the other hand, Japan got to reopen the debate on its Minke whale proposal. This time they proposed an amendment by which the only stock that would be considered to transfer to Appendix II was that of the Northwestern Pacific. Once again Japan asked for secret ballot. And once again, with a result of 53 votes in favor and 66 against, the proposal was rejected. With this rejection we thought they would not bring up the Bryde's whale proposal the following day... and they didn't.

So it was the big day for cetaceans! It was really something to be part of it while all the debate and discussions were carried out. It was also revealing how it works at the voting moment and during the speaking turns.

In the end, the balance tells us that the Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties was a positive one for the species. It was positive, for instance, for cetaceans, mahogany, sea horses and sharks (which during the last day of sessions won their battle). But nevertheless, I do not forget that it was not so good for elephants...

And personally, it was a two week period of hard, exigent work, with very little time to rest. But it was absolutely compensated for the results achieved and for the amazing people I got to know in Santiago from all over the world.

Marta Hevia at the CSI desk at the CITES Conference