Decision directed to Secretariat
Subject to external funding, the Secretariat shall
a) continue to provide capacity-building assistance for implementing Appendix-II shark and ray listings to Parties, especially developing countries and small island developing states, upon request;
b) liaise with relevant Regional Fisheries Management Organizations and Arrangements (RFMO/As) to identify opportunities for capacity building with the same organizations, possibly in the form of attending meetings (where the RFMO/A permits such attendance) or by directly liaising with the Secretariat of the organization to provide this information to its membership and/or the provision of training. The aim of this exercise would be to share information to improve the knowledge of CITES in the workings of each relevant RFMO/A;
c) conduct a further study to look into the apparent mismatch between the trade in products of CITES-listed sharks recorded in the CITES Trade Database and what would be expected against the information available on catches of listed species, building on the study entitled Missing sharks: A country review of catch, trade and management recommendations for CITES- listed shark species and share both studies with proposed solutions to resolve this issue to the Animals Committee and Standing Committee, in a timely manner;
d) collaborate closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to:
i) verify that information about Parties’ shark management measures is correctly reflected in the shark measures database developed by FAO (http://www.fao.org/ipoa-sharks/database-of-measures/en/) and if not, support FAO in correcting the information;
ii) compile clear imagery of wet and dried unprocessed shark fins (particularly, but not exclusively, those from CITES-listed species) along with related species level taxonomic information to facilitate refinement of iSharkFin software developed by FAO;
iii) conduct a study analysing the trade in non-fin shark products of CITES-listed species, including the level of species mixing in trade products and recommendations on how to address any implementation challenges arising from the mixing that may be identified; and
e) bring the results of activities in this present Decision to the attention of the Animals Committee or Standing Committee, as appropriate.