[Coral-List] global wildlife trade (including corals) and income disparity

[Douglas Fenner]

International socioeconomic inequality drives trade patterns in the global
wildlife market

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/19/eabf7679

"The wildlife trade is a major cause of species loss and a pathway for
disease transmission."  (first sentence in the abstract)

Corals are one of the 12 groups of organisms that they analyzed.

They report that the biggest importing countries are high income countries,
and the biggest exporters are low income countries (though obviously there
are high income countries that are not significant importers and low income
countries that are not significant exporters, I think actually most low
income countries have few if any exports of wildlife).

The pattern for corals is similar to part of the pattern for all wildlife,
the biggest importer of corals is the USA followed by the European Union,
and the biggest exporter is Indonesia.  Now they are primarily living
corals for aquaria, in the past they were skeletons to sell in shell shops
It is the exact same two countries for all CITES trade put together as this
study reports. The Philippines used to be the biggest exporter of corals,
but has stopped all exports of corals.  Reef fish are not listed on CITES.

All hard corals, including non-reef building, azooxanthellate deep
water/cold water coral, are listed on Appendix II of CITES (Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an
international treaty) and cannot be moved between countries without a CITES
permit from the exporting country government, which is required by the
customs of the importing country.  Any country that has not signed CITES
will not be able to issue CITES permits, so other countries are bound by
the CITES treaty to not allow any listed species into their country from
there.  Importing countries have the option to require an import permit as
well, and the European Union does that (at least for corals, I don't know
about other wildlife).  They are the only ones I know of that do.
     Representatives of the countries that signed CITES (which are almost
all countries and are called the "parties" to CITES) periodically get
together and vote on proposals to list additional species.  Any country
that wants an additional species listed can get it listed on Appendix III
without a vote, and that makes it so importing countries must see a CITES
permit from that country to allow import of that species from that country
(only).  CITES pledges importing countries to enforce the decisions of
exporting countries that want to protect their wildlife.  Very clever
system.  It does depend on countries doing what they pledged to do when
they signed the agreement.  A country that wants to import some kind of
wildlife could let in shipments that don't have a CITES permit, and a
country that doesn't care could issue CITES permit for shipments that could
hurt their species.  Those are probably quite unusual, though many lower
income countries with high diversity may not have enough information on
the status of all their species (especially corals).  It's not perfect but
way better than nothing.  And maybe nobody has come up with anything better.
    I believe the data that this study was based on is all CITES data,
records of exports and imports of all CITES listed species of all kinds,
collected by government agencies in the countries.  Without CITES, that
data would not exist, another benefit of the CITES system.  Of course any
illegal shipments are not included in the data, but risk government
prosecution.

    Far from perfect, but surely helpful.  And it does come at a cost, and
I'm not talking about money.  I've been trying to be able to ship a few
tiny pieces of coral for genetics to a scientist in another country, been
trying for 2 years, and can't do it because I have to leave American Samoa
to go at least to Hawaii to show the corals and myself to the US govt
office, and there are no flights because of the pandemic.  Plus, some
decades ago, a shipment of the finest collection of Stylaster corals ever
assembled was lost when it was shipped from one US govt agency to another
for inspection.  I personally think the up side of CITES is vastly greater
than the down sides, but the downs do exist.
   Cheers, Doug

-- 
Douglas Fenner
Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Coral Reef Consulting
PO Box 997390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298  USA

Slashing emissions by 2050 isn't enough.  We can bring down temperature now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/climate-deadlines-super-pollutants-hfcs-methane/2021/04/15/acb8c612-9d7d-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html

Humans have destroyed 97% of earth's ecosystems
(well, more like only 3% are fully intact)
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BB1fH7DT?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare

Study: One-third of plant and animal species could be gone in 50 years.
(but 2-4 times worse in tropics)
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/uoa-soo021220.php
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/8/4211