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Whale
shark are ocean wanderers in need of international
protection. |
Seychelles hopes to launch the process to enable an international conservation agreement for whale sharks at the upcoming meeting of the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in November this year.
The CMS is an inter-governmental treaty under the United Nations’ Environment Programme that aims to conserve migratory species throughout their range by developing agreements between the countries that occur along the range for a particular species. These agreements also cover ‘International Waters’ and as such this body is ideally suited to the development of a conservation agreement for whale sharks which have been shown to migrate long distance across oceans passing through the jurisdiction of many countries, as well as spending a lot of time on the high seas.
Whale sharks were listed on Appendix II of the Convention in 1999 as a species whose conservation status would benefit significantly from international cooperative action, however to date no such actions had been proposed.
With the whale shark, turtles and numerous sea-bird species in mind the Government of Seychelles applied to join the CMS late in 2004 and the convention came into affect for Seychelles as of August 1st this year. The Seychelles had already signed the CMS Indian Ocean South East Asia Sea Turtle Agreement as an external participant, and hopes were high that Seychelles could play an important role in the conservation of whale shark in this region through the CMS.
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Whale
sharks are vulnerable on their long distance
migrations through 'International Waters'. Photo
Chris Goodwin |
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Over the last 24 months MCSS has been active within the region to move similar
minded organization to lobby their governments to support an initiative on the whale shark and this peaked at the International Whale Shark Conference in Perth in May this year. In liaison with the Ministry of Environment a draft recommendation was distributed for consideration by other organizations and countries. This is now awaiting final Governmental approval for submission to the CMS by the mid-October deadline.
The draft is only the first step. The member States of CMS have to decide if they agree with the proposal and provided that a sufficient majority are in agreement, then the proposal will be enacted, allowing for the development of an appropriate conservation and management plan through a number of international meetings. This is not a short process, but it has to be started somewhere and Seychelles hopes that it may be able to kick-start it this year.
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