CITES Calendar

Meeting summary

The third workshop on non-detriment findings (NDF), held from 11-12 March 2014 in Guatemala City, is derived from the fulfilment of the Parties of the CITES Convention Resolution Conf. 16.7 adopted at the 16th Conference of the Convention on Trade International Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which encourages Parties to share their experiences on different ways of developing their NDF through national or regional workshops and work together to improve their skills. The workshop was attended by 32 participants. The objectives of the workshop were to share the progress of countries of the implementation of new CITES listings, including manta rays and three shark species in Appendix II; to share efforts in preparing their NDFs considering the agreements and recommendations of the workshop in September 2013, in San Salvador, El Salvador; to establish collaborative mechanisms regionally and nationally among CITES authorities, Fisheries and organizations to contribute to sustainable and responsible management of shark species in Appendix II.

The CITES Secretariat reviewed the history of the involvement of CITES in the conservation and sustainable use of sharks and policy on non-detriment findings agreed by the Conference of the Parties to CITES. The Secretariat also highlighted examples of good practice in non-detriment findings for sharks drawn from national cases studies around the world. Finally the Secretariat acted as a resource as the meeting participants’ fisheries and CITES authorities reviewed their national activities for the implementation of CITES for Appendix II sharks and discussed improvements that could be made.

The workshop was successful in that it presented an opportunity to improve coordination and communication at national and regional level. Also, the systematization of national information on sharks submitted by countries during the workshop contributed to establish a line of national and regional basis for the formulation of non-detriment findings, which shall be subject to a more intense process of work by CITES and local Regional Fisheries Management Organization such as Organización del Sector Pesquero y Acuícola de Centroamerica (Organization of Fishing and Aquaculture in Central America - OSPESCA).

Useful documentation: presentation 'Introduction to NDFs' (Spanish)

Deadline to submit to the CITES Secretariat documents for consideration at the 21st meeting of the CITES Plants Committee (PC21)

World Tourism Forum Think Tank 2014