So, now you’re a CITES professional and you know all there is to know about them, right? Maybe!

CITES will be meeting on March 3-14, 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand for their 16th meeting, and during this meeting a variety of amendments and proposals will be discussed and voted on. One of those will be a proposal by Costa Rica, which was also co-sponsored by Programa de Restauracion de Tortugas (PRETOMA), Fundacion Marviva, Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica and a few others. In September, Costa Rica (along with the others named) brought the initial amendment to light to get Scalloped Hammerheads under Appendix III, and under that Appendix they will receive protection (in at least one country) 90 days after Sept. 25, 2012. Under Appendix III (if you remember from the first blog) any country can unilaterally place a native species in it, no voting needed.

What will happen now is that during the upcoming meeting, the proposal to get Hammerheads protected will be voted on, and if approved (a 2/3 vote is needed) Hammerhead sharks will be placed within Appendix II; which gives them a tremendous amount more protection. If approved, the export of Hammerheads would be regulated in whole, parts and derivatives. Back in 2010 the United States and Palau tried to get Hammerheads protected under Appendix II, but the 2/3 of the votes was not achieved.

Sea Save would like to attend this upcoming meeting in March. We would like to be there and vote in favor of Hammerheads (of course, along with other animals) but, it’s not that easy. Susana Navajas of Sea Save was interviewed earlier last week about this issue and about CITES and sharks.

Here’s the interview:

And, here’s a photo of the interview:

Now, let’s all ask ourselves what we can do – ‘what can we do?!’

Let’s make a list, shall we?

It’s THAT simple! So, let’s get to helping to save some sharks!