May 26, 2010

Palau scientists warn of collapsing fish stocks

Environmentalists and scientists armed with new studies warned of collapsing fish stocks Monday, as diplomats launched a weeklong review of a 77-nation agreement on high seas fisheries.

Palau called for an international moratorium on shark finning at the outset of a review held once every four years to address the declining numbers of fish stocks under a 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement.

Palau's UN Ambassador Stuart Beck said the killing of 73 million sharks a year because people like the way their fins taste in soup shows just how badly wrong things have gotten with ocean management.

"The slaughter of sharks for their fins to make soup is as needless and cruel as the killing of elephants for their tusks to make ornaments. The island nations are sounding the alarm: only concerted outrage can save the world's sharks from being slaughtered for the delectation of soup lovers," he said.

Palau President Johnson Toribiong last year announced his nation was creating the world's first shark sanctuary to protect great hammerheads, leopard sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks and more than 130 other species fighting extinction in the Pacific Ocean.

Sharks are vulnerable to overfishing because of their low fertility rates and long life spans. But shark fishing has boomed since the 1980s fuelled by demand from China and other nations for shark fin soup, a prized symbol of wealth.

The UN's legal framework, which extends among 77 parties including the EU, is used to regulate tuna, swordfish and other migratory species that travel long distances. It also covers halibut, cod and other species that straddle the exclusive economic zones of coastal nations.