UN talks aid eels, elephants to ease extinctions

THE HAGUE, June 16 (Reuters) Elephants and eels may find life slightly easier after trade curbs imposed by UN talks ending on Friday that are a pinprick to slow what may be the worst wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs.

The June 3-15 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) also agreed trade restrictions for commercial species including Brazilwood timber, used in violin bows, some fish and corals.

''We have listings of commercial fish species, commercial timber species and I think that should continue,'' CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers told a news conference at the 171-nation talks yesterday.

He said that CITES, set up in 1975 with powers to ban or restrict trade in endangered species, had spent its early years monitoring sales of exotic parrots or snakes while avoiding battles over species in a billion-dollar wildlife trade.

''We have always been kept away from commercial fish and commercial timber but that is now slowly disappearing,'' he said.

There were few exceptions, he said, such as sturgeon overfished for caviar that have had trade protection since 1975.

Among commercial fish species, the conference voted to restrict trade in the European eel after stocks crashed due to over-fishing. Baby eels can sometimes be more expensive than caviar, for the same weight.

Some efforts to list commercial species failed, such as a European Union drive to restrict trade in Latin American cedar and rosewood trees used in furniture and musical instruments.

The WWF and Traffic wildlife monitoring network hailed some of the decisions but said they rued some other ''missed opportunities'' on timber and fisheries.

In the most hard-fought decision, the conference agreed to extend a 1989 ban on elephant ivory exports for nine years, after a sale from stockpiles by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe as part of a plan to end poaching.

The deal was a compromise between nations wanting a 20-year ban to try to crack down on poaching and the four southern African nations who say that farmers and villagers are suffering from conflicts with rising elephant populations.

The talks are part of global efforts to slow what the United Nations says is the worst extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, caused by loss of habitats, pollution, rising human populations and climate change.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity said last month that species are disappearing at a rate of three an hour. By that reckoning, about 1,000 species vanished during the talks.

''Where are the problems of biological diversity? It's clear it's in the forests, it's clear that it's in the marine. And then you run into huge economic interests,'' said Jochen Flasbarth, the German official who heads the EU delegation.

CITES, which has just 24 staff, merely looks at species affected by trade while other UN agencies have more power over other areas such as loss of habitats, Wijnstekers noted. ''Three species an hour is not caused by trade.'' Delegates said the decision on the elephant export ban might help put the spotlight on other species.

''At these meetings it's always elephants, elephants, elephants,'' said Zimbabwe's Environment and Tourism Minister Francis Nhema. ''Maybe other species will get more attention in future,'' he said, mentioning, lions, leopards and even beetles.

Reuters AK RS0857