Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 12 • Number 34 • 16th October 2008

Trade in Wild Plants, Tuna Make Waves at IUCN Congress

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Sustainable management of wild plants and trade in Mediterranean bluefin tuna were tackled at the 10-day IUCN World Conservation Congress, which concluded on 14 October in Barcelona, Spain.

Signatory institutions to an international standard that promotes the sustainable management of wild plants used in medicines and cosmetics have agreed to create an industry labelling system that will allow sustainably harvested products to be easily identified.

The new international labelling system, which was endorsed by the parties to the International Standard for Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP), will primarily be used in the herbal products industry. More than 320,000 tonnes of medicinal and aromatic plants are harvested in the wild and traded annually. Many of these are harvested unsustainably and in danger of extinction.

“Industry adoption of the standard will ensure sustainable use and equitable sharing of the world’s wild plant resources,” said IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre. “This new agreement marks a significant step forward in the sustainable use of wild plants important to human health and well being.”

Implementation of the new labelling system will take place under the auspices of the Fair Wild Foundation - a joint initiative of the Swiss Import Promotion Organisation (SIPPO), the Institute for Marketecology (IMO), and Forum Essenzia to promote socially and environmentally sustainable use of natural products.

In other trade news from the Congress, key countries voted to close the Mediterranean bluefin tuna industry until stocks can be brought under control. Observers say the 13 October vote came as a surprise, due to the acquiescence of major exporter Spain and major importer Japan.

The vote also calls for a permanent fishing ban in the months of May and June, when bluefin tuna are spawning.

While the motion is non-binding, it places pressure on the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the body that will decide on the future of the fishery in November, to follow suit.

“This year’s meeting will be the last real chance for ICCAT to show to the world it deserves the mandate given by society to manage this fisheries and avoid the collapse of the species,” says Sergi Tudela of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). “The message that we need to close the fishery now or have few fish and no fishery into the future is now coming from scientists, from consumers, from communities and from countries.”

Bluefin tuna quotas in the Mediterranean and Atlantic have been long criticised by environmentalists as unsustainable. Some of these groups - including WWF, Ecologistas en Acción, and SEO/Birdlife - were responsible for getting the tuna motion on the agenda in Barcelona.

The IUCN World Conservation Congress takes place every four years with the goal of promoting dialogue, debate and decision making among some of the world’s leading sustainable development actors.

ICTSD reporting.