DELEGATES from around the world have gathered in Thailand to work out a mechanism to restrict trade in wildlife and save endangered animals, including sharks, manta rays, polar bears, elephants and rhinos.
About 2,000 delegates from 178 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora are in Bangkok for the 16th CITES conference, held every three years.
The delegates are to consider dozens of proposals on increased or decreased trade protection for endangered species by listing them on Appendix I, which prohibits all traffic in a species, or Appendix II, which restricts trade to ensure it is sustainable.
Conservationists are calling on Australia to take a stand to protect several shark species threatened by the multi-million dollar shark fin trade to Asia, especially China.
Humane Society International Australia's program director Alexia Wellbelove says shark and ray populations are in trouble and international trade is a key driver in their decline as sharks are being taken at an unsustainable rate, primarily for their fins for shark fin soup.
The CITES meeting will decide whether international conservation efforts will be used to restrict the trade in several shark species now seen as vulnerable.
The European Union, the US and several South American countries are hoping to list two manta ray species and five shark species, including the porbeagle shark - the largest marine predator in European waters - on Appendix II.
"This conference can be the turning point, finally, for better protection of marine species under CITES," said Elsa Nikel, head of the German delegation.
Three of the hammerhead shark species designated for Appendix II are popular for use in shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy.
The United States proposed that the polar bear, whose survival is being threatened by melting ice around the Arctic Circle, be placed on Appendix I.
China and Japan have traditionally voted against efforts to include marine animals under convention protections.
"I think it is going to be a tight vote," said John Scanlon, CITES secretary general.
The conference is scheduled to end March 14.
This year's meeting was also expected to spotlight a recent boom in the illicit trade in African ivory and rhinoceros horn, fuelled by political instability in parts of the continent and a surge in demand from increasingly prosperous Asia.
The convention estimated that 25,000 African elephants were killed for the illegal ivory trade and 668 rhinos were slaughtered for their horns in 2011.
Host Thailand has come under pressure to ban or better regulate its domestic trade in ivory sourced from Asian elephants, which has allegedly precipitated a large trade in smuggled African tusks. It has been threatened with trade sanctions if it fails to do so.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra opened the conference with a pledge to amend the registration process for Thailand's domesticated elephants that has provided a legal loophole for illicit traffic in African elephant tusks.
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