
by Leah Meth
Today, after months of anticipation, Shark Stanley landed in Bangkok. After the long migration from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, our team has finally arrived in Thailand. This morning, 40 years to the day since the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was signed, 178 countries gathered for the start of the 16th Conference of the Parties, where over the next two weeks, there will be the chance to change the fate of some of the ocean’s most vulnerable and overexploited shark species.
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The Shark Stanley team in Bangkok |
The importance of this moment for sharks and rays cannot be overstated. Just this week a new paper in Marine Policy announced that an estimated 100 million sharks are killed each year – and staggeringly, perhaps as many as 273 million. Prominent fisheries scientist and lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University goes on to say that this rate of fishing exceeds the ability of sharks to recover, meaning that, “protective measure must be scaled up significantly in order to avoid further depletion and possible extinction of many shark species.” Today, right now, we have this opportunity.
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Delegates from Yemen and Sudan with Shark Stanley |
The fish proposals will be up for consideration starting towards the end of this week. Until then, our team will be camped out at our Shark Stanley booth and roaming the convention hall, sharing your voice with delegates from around the world. Today alone, we were visited by representatives from dozens of countries, with delegates from Nigeria, Mali, Namibia, United Kingdom, Kenya, Thailand, Egypt, Bhutan, Nepal, Philippines, Israel, Malta, Sudan, and Yemen eagerly seeking out the petition “signatures” of their constituents, their enthusiasm matching those of the photos looking back at them. We heard many stories of local initiatives in-country, impassioned support for the shark and manta ray proposals, and optimism for the outcomes of the next few weeks.
In closing this first dispatch from Bangkok - we want to thank you again. I've enjoyed corresponding and sharing this campaign with all of you and it's difficult to find words to express our team's gratitude. Your support continues to humble, and as we plastered the walls of our booth with the thousands of photos you’ve sent to us over the past two months, I was filled with such energy; such inspiration. This campaign has become larger than I could have ever dreamed a few short months ago. We began as just two students from Canada and Mongolia, and have now grown into a grassroots network of over 50 organizations and nearly ten thousand individuals from 120 countries! Together, we represent a rich diversity of ages, nationalities, backgrounds and experiences, linked together through this charismatic little hammerhead and his friends, and unified in our call for change. We simply could not be here without you and we are honored to be able to act as the channel through which your voice can be heard on the international stage at this critical moment.
Stay tuned – we’ll be checking in daily to keep you updated! Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and of course, here on the blog for the latest news from CITES.
5 comments:
Absolutely amazing, you guys have worked so hard, thank you for taking the plight of these species on and giving them the voice they deserve! We're all behind you and look forward to updates as the days go on!
Hi I'm Ben. I'm 10 years old. I'm from Canada too. You make me so happy because now I know that a lot of people care for sharks. My mom and dad helped me start a website because sharks are my life and I want everyone to say NO to shark fin soup.
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