BLUEFIN TUNA TOPS CITES UN CONFERENCE AGENDA

TUNA, POLAR BEARS, TUSKERS, TIGERS
TO DOMINATE UN WILDLIFE TRADE MEET

DOHA (AFP) - Sales of ivory and a ban on trading bluefin tuna top the agenda for the two-week CITES meeting in Doha, Qatar. The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), is the only UN body with the power to outlaw commerce in endangered wild animals and plants. Besides the sharply disputed proposal on bluefin, the Convention will debate the status of African elephants, polar bears and tigers. Up to 73 million of the open-water predators are killed every year for their fins, a prestige food eaten mainly in China and Chinese communities around the world. Until now, the forum was best known for measures restricting commerce in charismatic species, including big cats, great apes and elephants. But for the first time a marine species - bluefin tuna - has taken centre stage. Despite self-imposed quotas, high-tech fisheries have drained tuna stocks in the Mediterranean and Western Atlantic by as much as 80 percent since 1970.

Animals and plants are listed on three levels according to the degree of protection they need. APPENDIX I covers about 530 animals - including tigers, great apes, snow leopards and sea turtles. The vast majority of species covered are in APPENDIX II, which permits carefully regulated trade. On elephants, a proposal by Tanzania and Zambia would reopen trade in ivory, but most other African nations oppose the move. Polar bears are also being considered for the top level of protection. Attended by environmentalists, animal rights advocates, big business and governments, CITES seeks a sustainable balance between protection and commercial exploitation.


Unfortunately, cows never meet the adequate criteria for deserving protection and a total ban on national or international trade. Governments maintain slaughterhouses for the satisfactions of the tongue of the citizens, so cows are always out of the UN international agenda.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Every living creature is a son of the Supreme Lord, and He does not tolerate even an ant's being killed. One has to pay for it. So indulgence in animal killing for the taste of the tongue is the grossest kind of ignorance. A human being has no need to kill animals, because God has supplied so many nice things. If one indulges in meat-eating anyway, it is to be understood that he is acting in ignorance and is making his future very dark. Of all kinds of animal killing, the killing of cows is most vicious because the cow gives us all kinds of pleasure by supplying milk.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“Bhagavad-gītā As It Is”
Purport in Chapter 14 - Verse 16.