AFP UK

The crucial COP15 meeting comes as scientists warn the world is potentially facing its sixth mass extinction event

Experts and activists were hoping UN climate talks would end last week with a prominent mention of biodiversity in the final text. They walked away disappointed.

Some say delegates at the COP27 summit missed a key opportunity to acknowledge the connection between the twin climate and nature crises, which many believe have been treated separately for too long.

Failing to address both could mean not only further decimating Earth’s life support systems, but also missing the key climate target of limiting warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, they warn.

“We’re doomed if we don’t solve climate, and we’re doomed if we don’t solve biodiversity,” Basile van Havre, co-chair of the UN biodiversity negotiations, told AFP.

At the COP15 UN biodiversity talks next month, dozens of countries will meet to hammer out a new framework to protect animals and plants from destruction by humans.

The meeting comes as scientists warn that climate change and biodiversity damage could cause the world’s sixth mass extinction event.

Such destruction of nature also risks worsening climate change.

The oceans have absorbed most of the excess heat created by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and, along with forests, are important carbon sinks.

“(Nature) is up to a third of the climate solution. And it is a proven technology,” Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, told AFP.

He said oceans in particular are unsung “superheroes”, which have absorbed carbon and heat, at the cost of acidification and coral-killing heatwaves.

As the world warms, species and ecosystems can also play a crucial role in building resilience. Mangroves, for example, can protect against coastal erosion caused by rising seas linked to a warming planet.

– ‘Missed opportunity’ –

Perhaps the most attention on the natural world at COP27 came during a visit by Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will take office in January.

He has vowed to halt the rampant deforestation of the Amazon seen under incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and announced during the climate talks plans to create a ministry for indigenous people, custodians of the rainforest.

The crucial “30 by 30” biodiversity target also got a boost when a bloc of West African nations vowed to adhere to the goal of protecting 30 percent of the natural world by 2030. 

Biodiversity received a nod in the final COP27 text, including in a paragraph calling for “the urgent need to address, in a comprehensive and synergetic manner, the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss”.

But the upcoming COP15 meeting in Montreal — tasked with setting out an ambitious plan for humanity’s relationship with nature for the coming decades — did not get the encouragement many were hoping for.

“It is a missed opportunity that COP15, taking place just in two weeks’ time, did not get a highlight by COP27,” Li Shuo, senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace East Asia, told AFP.

But he cautioned it “should not be a deal-breaker, this should not be the end of the world”. 

For Zoe Quiroz Cullen, head of climate and nature linkages at Fauna & Flora International, it was “deeply concerning” that the text “fails to recognise the crucial linkage to COP27’s sister convention on nature,” the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

“The twin climate and biodiversity crises are at risk from being considered and treated in silos,” she told AFP.

– ‘Subcategory’ –

While energy policy has dominated the climate talks, and plastic and pesticide pollution are more the preserve of the biodiversity talks, other issues — food production, indigenous land rights, protections of oceans and forests — are entwined with both.

The United Nations has traditionally treated the climate and biodiversity crises distinctly, each getting their own COP meetings (Conference of the Parties), and each managed by its own institution: climate by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and biodiversity by the CBD.

Most experts say the two crises are serious enough to warrant this separate treatment. But some complain that biodiversity has been seen as “just a subcategory of climate”, as O’Donnell put it.

“Decades of approaching these things in isolation still continues, unfortunately, too much to this day.”

In the long term, neglecting nature could mean the unabated destruction of ecosystems and species — and missing the Paris Agreement climate goals.

“We cannot meet the 1.5 degree target for climate without bold action on nature,” O’Donnell said.

“We need to solve them both if we want to have a liveable planet for future generations.”

The crucial COP15 meeting comes as scientists warn the world is potentially facing its sixth mass extinction event

Experts and activists were hoping UN climate talks would end last week with a prominent mention of biodiversity in the final text. They walked away disappointed.

Some say delegates at the COP27 summit missed a key opportunity to acknowledge the connection between the twin climate and nature crises, which many believe have been treated separately for too long.

Failing to address both could mean not only further decimating Earth’s life support systems, but also missing the key climate target of limiting warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, they warn.

“We’re doomed if we don’t solve climate, and we’re doomed if we don’t solve biodiversity,” Basile van Havre, co-chair of the UN biodiversity negotiations, told AFP.

At the COP15 UN biodiversity talks next month, dozens of countries will meet to hammer out a new framework to protect animals and plants from destruction by humans.

The meeting comes as scientists warn that climate change and biodiversity damage could cause the world’s sixth mass extinction event.

Such destruction of nature also risks worsening climate change.

The oceans have absorbed most of the excess heat created by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and, along with forests, are important carbon sinks.

“(Nature) is up to a third of the climate solution. And it is a proven technology,” Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, told AFP.

He said oceans in particular are unsung “superheroes”, which have absorbed carbon and heat, at the cost of acidification and coral-killing heatwaves.

As the world warms, species and ecosystems can also play a crucial role in building resilience. Mangroves, for example, can protect against coastal erosion caused by rising seas linked to a warming planet.

– ‘Missed opportunity’ –

Perhaps the most attention on the natural world at COP27 came during a visit by Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will take office in January.

He has vowed to halt the rampant deforestation of the Amazon seen under incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and announced during the climate talks plans to create a ministry for indigenous people, custodians of the rainforest.

The crucial “30 by 30” biodiversity target also got a boost when a bloc of West African nations vowed to adhere to the goal of protecting 30 percent of the natural world by 2030. 

Biodiversity received a nod in the final COP27 text, including in a paragraph calling for “the urgent need to address, in a comprehensive and synergetic manner, the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss”.

But the upcoming COP15 meeting in Montreal — tasked with setting out an ambitious plan for humanity’s relationship with nature for the coming decades — did not get the encouragement many were hoping for.

“It is a missed opportunity that COP15, taking place just in two weeks’ time, did not get a highlight by COP27,” Li Shuo, senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace East Asia, told AFP.

But he cautioned it “should not be a deal-breaker, this should not be the end of the world”. 

For Zoe Quiroz Cullen, head of climate and nature linkages at Fauna & Flora International, it was “deeply concerning” that the text “fails to recognise the crucial linkage to COP27’s sister convention on nature,” the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

“The twin climate and biodiversity crises are at risk from being considered and treated in silos,” she told AFP.

– ‘Subcategory’ –

While energy policy has dominated the climate talks, and plastic and pesticide pollution are more the preserve of the biodiversity talks, other issues — food production, indigenous land rights, protections of oceans and forests — are entwined with both.

The United Nations has traditionally treated the climate and biodiversity crises distinctly, each getting their own COP meetings (Conference of the Parties), and each managed by its own institution: climate by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and biodiversity by the CBD.

Most experts say the two crises are serious enough to warrant this separate treatment. But some complain that biodiversity has been seen as “just a subcategory of climate”, as O’Donnell put it.

“Decades of approaching these things in isolation still continues, unfortunately, too much to this day.”

In the long term, neglecting nature could mean the unabated destruction of ecosystems and species — and missing the Paris Agreement climate goals.

“We cannot meet the 1.5 degree target for climate without bold action on nature,” O’Donnell said.

“We need to solve them both if we want to have a liveable planet for future generations.”

Kilometres of used cars from Asia have been dumped in Chile's Atacama desert

It may be one of the driest places on Earth — a brutal, alien landscape where life seems impossible. 

But Chile’s massive Atacama desert is a unique and fragile ecosystem that experts say is being threatened by piles of trash dumped there from around the world.

Mountains of discarded clothing, a graveyard of shoes, and rows upon rows of scrapped tires and cars blight at least three regions of the desert in northern Chile.

“We are no longer just the local backyard, but rather the world’s backyard, which is worse,” Patricio Ferreira, mayor of the desert town of Alto Hospicio, told AFP.

The Atacama, with its striking otherworldly beauty and expansive salt flats, has also been transformed by intensive mining for copper and lithium.

Carmen Serrano, head of the Endemic Roots environmental NGO, said that most people see the Atacama as nothing more than “bare hills” where they can “extract resources or fill their pockets.”

– ‘Lack of global awareness’-

Chile has long been a hub for secondhand and unsold clothing from Europe, Asia, and the United States, which is either sold on throughout Latin America, or ends up in rubbish dumps in the desert.

Spurred on by the world’s insatiable appetite for fast fashion, this chain last year saw over 46,000 tonnes of used clothing funneled into northern Chile’s Iquique free trade zone.

Full of chemicals and taking up to 200 years to biodegrade, activists say the clothing pollutes the soil, air and underground water.

The heaps of hand-me-downs are sometimes even set alight. 

“The material is highly flammable. The fires are toxic,” said lawyer and activist Paulin Silva, 34, who has filed a complaint at the country’s environmental court over the damage caused by the mountains of trash and clothing.

“It seems to me we need to find those responsible,” she said, standing amid the discarded items which she said were “dangerous, an environmental risk, a danger to people’s health.”

Used cars also flood into the country from the free trade zone. Many are exported to Peru, Bolivia or Paraguay, while others end up dumped in graveyards kilometers wide in the surrounding desert.

Piles of abandoned tires are also scattered across the desert.

The mayor Ferreira lamented a “lack of global awareness, a lack of ethical responsibility and environmental protection” from “the unscrupulous of the world.”

“We feel abandoned. We feel that our land has been sacrificed.”

– A ‘very fragile’ ecosystem’-

For more than eight million years, the 100,000 square kilometer expanse of the Atacama has been the most arid desert in the world. 

Rain is rare, and in some parts, non-existent.

The driest part is the Yungay district in the city of Antofagasta. Here, scientists have found extreme forms of life, microorganisms that have adapted to a practically waterless world, high levels of solar radiation, and barely any nutrients.

Scientists believe these microorganisms may harbor secrets to evolution and survival on Earth and other planets.

NASA considers the Yungay district to be Earth’s most similar landscape to Mars, and uses it to test its robotic vehicles.

While it doesn’t receive much rain, large banks of fog roll across the desert, allowing some plants — and some of the world’s hardiest lichens, fungi, and algae — to grow. 

Scores of brightly colored wildflower species bloom when it gets above average rain in a spectacular display that happens every five to seven years, most recently in 2021.

It is an ecosystem that is “very fragile, because any change or decrease in the pattern of precipitation and fog has immediate consequences for the species that live there,” said Pablo Guerrero, a researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity and expert in desert cactus.

“There are cactus species which are considered extinct” as a result of pollution, climate change, and human settlement.

“Unfortunately, it is something we are seeing on a massive scale, with systematic deterioration in recent years.”

Stuffed sharks sit on tables at a global wildlife summit, where many countries are hoping for new trade restrictions to protect the ancient predator

Delegates at a global summit on trade in endangered species have postponed until Friday a vote on whether to approve a proposal to protect sharks, a move that could drastically reduce the lucrative and often cruel shark fin trade.

The proposal would place dozens of species of the requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The appendix lists species that may not yet be threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled.  

If the plenary meeting gives the green light, “it would be a historic decision,” Panamanian delegate Shirley Binder, who presided over the meeting, told AFP.

“For the first time CITES would be handling a very large number of shark species, which would be approximately 90 percent of the market,” she said.

Although a vote had been expected Thursday, Binder suspended the session late in the afternoon and pushed it to Friday, as debate over the hippo trade between the European Union and African countries dragged on.

Insatiable appetite in Asia for shark fins, which make their way onto dinner tables in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, has spurred their trade.

Despite being described as almost tasteless and gelatinous, shark fin soup is viewed as a delicacy and is enjoyed by the very wealthy, often at weddings and expensive banquets.

Shark fins, representing a market of about $500 million per year, can sell for about $1,000 a kilogram.

– From villain to darling –

Sharks have long been seen as the villain of the seas they have occupied for more than 400 million years, drawing horror with their depiction in films such as “Jaws,” and occasional attacks on humans.

However, these ancient predators have undergone an image makeover in recent years as conservationists have highlighted the crucial role they play in regulating the ocean ecosystem.

According to the Pew Environment Group, between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins and other parts.

With many shark species taking more than 10 years to reach sexual maturity, and having a low fertility rate, the constant hunting of the species has decimated their numbers.

In many parts of the world, fisherman lop the shark’s fins off at sea, tossing the shark back into the ocean for a cruel death by suffocation or blood loss.

The efforts by conservationists led to a turning point in 2013, when CITES imposed the first trade restrictions on some shark species. 

“We are in the middle of a very large shark extinction crisis,” Luke Warwick, director of shark protection for the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told AFP at the beginning of the summit.

– Heated debate –

During hours-long fierce debate Thursday, Japan and Peru sought to reduce the number of shark species that would be protected. 

Japan had proposed that the trade restriction be reduced to 19 species of requiem sharks, and Peru called for the blue shark to be removed from the list. 

However, both suggestions were rejected.

“We hope that nothing extraordinary happens and that these entire families of sharks are ratified for inclusion in Annex II,” Chilean delegate Ricardo Saez told AFP. 

Several delegations, including hosts Panama, displayed stuffed toy sharks on their tables during the earlier Committee I debate.

The plenary will also vote Friday on ratifying a proposal to protect guitarfish, a species of ray.

The shark initiative was one of the most discussed at this year’s CITES summit in Panama, with the proposal co-sponsored by the European Union and 15 countries. 

Participants at the summit considered 52 proposals to change species’ protection levels.

All are up for ratification.

CITES, which came into force in 1975, has set international trade rules for more than 36,000 wild species. 

Its signatories include 183 countries and the European Union. 

Stuffed sharks sit on tables at a global wildlife summit, where many countries are hoping for new trade restrictions to protect the ancient predator

Delegates at a global summit on trade in endangered species have postponed until Friday a vote on whether to approve a proposal to protect sharks, a move that could drastically reduce the lucrative and often cruel shark fin trade.

The proposal would place dozens of species of the requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The appendix lists species that may not yet be threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled.  

If the plenary meeting gives the green light, “it would be a historic decision,” Panamanian delegate Shirley Binder, who presided over the meeting, told AFP.

“For the first time CITES would be handling a very large number of shark species, which would be approximately 90 percent of the market,” she said.

Although a vote had been expected Thursday, Binder suspended the session late in the afternoon and pushed it to Friday, as debate over the hippo trade between the European Union and African countries dragged on.

Insatiable appetite in Asia for shark fins, which make their way onto dinner tables in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, has spurred their trade.

Despite being described as almost tasteless and gelatinous, shark fin soup is viewed as a delicacy and is enjoyed by the very wealthy, often at weddings and expensive banquets.

Shark fins, representing a market of about $500 million per year, can sell for about $1,000 a kilogram.

– From villain to darling –

Sharks have long been seen as the villain of the seas they have occupied for more than 400 million years, drawing horror with their depiction in films such as “Jaws,” and occasional attacks on humans.

However, these ancient predators have undergone an image makeover in recent years as conservationists have highlighted the crucial role they play in regulating the ocean ecosystem.

According to the Pew Environment Group, between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins and other parts.

With many shark species taking more than 10 years to reach sexual maturity, and having a low fertility rate, the constant hunting of the species has decimated their numbers.

In many parts of the world, fisherman lop the shark’s fins off at sea, tossing the shark back into the ocean for a cruel death by suffocation or blood loss.

The efforts by conservationists led to a turning point in 2013, when CITES imposed the first trade restrictions on some shark species. 

“We are in the middle of a very large shark extinction crisis,” Luke Warwick, director of shark protection for the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told AFP at the beginning of the summit.

– Heated debate –

During hours-long fierce debate Thursday, Japan and Peru sought to reduce the number of shark species that would be protected. 

Japan had proposed that the trade restriction be reduced to 19 species of requiem sharks, and Peru called for the blue shark to be removed from the list. 

However, both suggestions were rejected.

“We hope that nothing extraordinary happens and that these entire families of sharks are ratified for inclusion in Annex II,” Chilean delegate Ricardo Saez told AFP. 

Several delegations, including hosts Panama, displayed stuffed toy sharks on their tables during the earlier Committee I debate.

The plenary will also vote Friday on ratifying a proposal to protect guitarfish, a species of ray.

The shark initiative was one of the most discussed at this year’s CITES summit in Panama, with the proposal co-sponsored by the European Union and 15 countries. 

Participants at the summit considered 52 proposals to change species’ protection levels.

All are up for ratification.

CITES, which came into force in 1975, has set international trade rules for more than 36,000 wild species. 

Its signatories include 183 countries and the European Union. 

The Canadian boreal forest in the La Haute-Côte-Nord municipality near Baie-Comeau, Quebec, is seen August 25, 2022

The Canadian government on Thursday unveiled a CAN$1.6 billion (US$1.2 billion) plan to help the country deal with the looming dangers of a warming world, such as floods, wildfires and extreme heat.

The so-called climate adaptation strategy will fund programs to help Canadians shield themselves from heat waves, protect coastlines from rising seas and safeguard infrastructure, including in the far north, which is facing the thaw of permafrost, officials said.

“Climate change is hitting all communities right across Canada,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told a news conference from Prince Edward Island, a province hit hard by Hurricane Fiona in September.

The storm — said to be the costliest to hit Canada’s Atlantic coast — was just a taste of what’s to come, according to the government, which forecasts annual costs of natural disasters in Canada to rise to Can$15.4 billion by 2030.

“We are seeing in the last few years, not just in Canada but around the world, an increase in the frequency and severity of climate related events,” said Blair, citing extreme weather events that killed hundreds and devastated communities across the country.

The adaptation strategy, which the government presented as a work-in-progress, was hailed as a “great step forward” by Greenpeace, while the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which represents home, car and business insurers, called it “ambitious.”

Its goals also include making Canadians more aware of the risks of natural disasters in their communities, establishing 15 new urban national parks, conserving 30 percent of Canada’s lands and waters to stem biodiversity loss, and preventing all future deaths from extreme heat.

Adaptation measures, according to a government statement, could result in up to Can$15 in savings for every dollar spent.

New construction standards in fire and flood zones alone would save an estimated Can$4.7 billion a year, the government said, while noting that urban forests in Toronto — Canada’s largest city — have lowered cooling costs, improved air quality and reduced strains on stormwater sewers.

The new funding builds on more than Can$8 billion already committed by Ottawa for adaptation and disaster relief since 2009.

A fraught United Nations climate summit wrapped up on Sunday with a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with devastating climate impacts.

But it failed to push ahead on further cutting emissions in order to keep alive the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

Stuffed sharks sit on tables at a global wildlife summit, where many countries are hoping for new trade restrictions to protect the ancient predator

Delegates at a global summit on trade in endangered species will decide Thursday whether to approve a proposal to protect sharks, a move that could drastically reduce the lucrative and often cruel shark fin trade.

The proposal would place dozens of species of the requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The appendix lists species that may not yet be threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled.  

If Thursday’s plenary meeting — expected to go late into the evening — gives the green light, “it would be a historic decision,” Panamanian delegate Shirley Binder told AFP.

“For the first time CITES would be handling a very large number of shark species, which would be approximately 90 percent of the market,” she said. 

Spurring the trade is the insatiable Asian appetite for shark fins, which make their way onto dinner tables in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

Despite being described as almost tasteless and gelatinous, shark fin soup is viewed as a delicacy and is enjoyed by the very wealthy, often at weddings and expensive banquets.

Shark fins, representing a market of about $500 million per year, can sell for about $1,000 a kilogram.

– From villain to conservation darling –

Sharks have long been seen as the villain of the seas they have occupied for more than 400 million years, drawing horror with their depiction in films such as “Jaws,” and occasional attacks on humans.

However, these ancient predators have undergone an image makeover in recent years as conservationists have highlighted the crucial role they play in regulating the ocean ecosystem.

According to the Pew Environment Group, between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins and other parts.

With many shark species taking more than 10 years to reach sexual maturity, and having a low fertility rate, the constant hunting of the species has decimated their numbers.

In many parts of the world, fisherman lop the shark’s fins off at sea, tossing the shark back into the ocean for a cruel death by suffocation or blood loss.

The efforts by conservationists led to a turning point in 2013, when CITES imposed the first trade restrictions on some shark species. 

“We are in the middle of a very large shark extinction crisis,” Luke Warwick, director of shark protection for the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told AFP at the beginning of the summit.

– Heated debate –

Thursday’s vote followed a fierce debate that lasted nearly three hours, with Japan and Peru seeking to reduce the number of shark species that would be protected. 

Japan had proposed that the trade restriction be reduced to 19 species of requiem sharks, and Peru called for the blue shark to be removed from the list. 

However, both suggestions were rejected.

“We hope that nothing extraordinary happens and that these entire families of sharks are ratified for inclusion in Annex II,” Chilean delegate Ricardo Saez told AFP. 

Several delegations, including hosts Panama, displayed stuffed toy sharks on their tables during the earlier Committee I debate.

The plenary will also vote on ratifying a proposal to protect guitarfish, a species of ray.

The shark initiative was one of the most discussed at this year’s CITES summit in Panama, with the proposal co-sponsored by the European Union and 15 countries. 

Participants at the summit considered 52 proposals to change species’ protection levels.

All are up for ratification on Thursday and Friday.

CITES, which came into force in 1975, has set international trade rules for more than 36,000 wild species. 

Its signatories include 183 countries and the European Union. 

Stuffed sharks take center stage at a global wildlife summit, where many are hoping for new trade restrictions to protect the ancient predator.

Delegates at a global summit on trade in endangered species will decide Thursday whether to approve a proposal to protect sharks, a move that could drastically reduce the lucrative and often cruel shark fin trade.

The proposal would place dozens of species of the requiem shark and the hammerhead shark families on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The appendix lists species that may not yet be threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled.  

If Thursday’s plenary meeting gives the green light, “it would be a historic decision,” Panamanian delegate Shirley Binder told AFP.

“For the first time CITES would be handling a very large number of shark species, which would be approximately 90 percent of the market,” she said. 

Spurring the trade is the insatiable Asian appetite for shark fins, which make their way onto dinner tables in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan.

Despite being described as almost tasteless and gelatinous, shark fin soup is viewed as a delicacy and is enjoyed by the very wealthy, often at weddings and expensive banquets.

Shark fins, representing a market of about $500 million per year, can sell for about $1,000 a kilogram.

– From villain to conservation darling –

Sharks have long been seen as the villain of the seas they have occupied for more than 400 million years, drawing horror with their depiction in films such as “Jaws,” and occasional attacks on humans.

However, these ancient predators have undergone an image makeover in recent years as conservationists have highlighted the crucial role they play in regulating the ocean ecosystem.

According to the Pew Environment Group, between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins and other parts.

With many shark species taking more than 10 years to reach sexual maturity, and having a low fertility rate, the constant hunting of the species has decimated their numbers.

In many parts of the world, fisherman lop the sharks fins off at sea, tossing the shark back into the ocean for a cruel death by suffocation or blood loss.

The efforts by conservationists led to a turning point in 2013, when CITES imposed the first trade restrictions on some shark species. 

“We are in the middle of a very large shark extinction crisis,” Luke Warwick, director of shark protection for the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told AFP at the beginning of the summit. 

– Heated debate –

Thursday’s vote followed a fierce debate that lasted nearly three hours, with Japan and Peru seeking to reduce the number of shark species that would be protected. 

Japan had proposed that the trade restriction be reduced to 19 species of requiem sharks, and Peru called for the blue shark to be removed from the list. 

However, both suggestions were rejected.

“We hope that nothing extraordinary happens and that these entire families of sharks are ratified for inclusion in Annex II,” Chilean delegate Ricardo Saez told AFP. 

Several delegations, including hosts Panama, displayed stuffed toy sharks on their tables during the earlier Committee I debate.

The plenary will also vote on ratifying a proposal to protect guitarfish, a species of ray.

The shark initiative was one of the most discussed at this year’s CITES summit in Panama, with the proposal co-sponsored by the European Union and 15 countries. 

Participants at the summit considered 52 proposals to change species protection levels.

CITES, which came into force in 1975, has set international trade rules for more than 36,000 wild species. 

Its signatories include 183 countries and the European Union. 

Bullfighting is defended as a local tradition in many towns in southern France

A bid to ban bullfighting in France was abandoned Thursday in parliament, spelling relief for lovers of the traditional blood sport and dismay for animal rights’ activists. 

The 577-seat national assembly had looked set to vote on draft legislation that would have made the practice illegal.

But after lawmakers filed more than 500 amendments, many of them designed to take up parliamentary time and obstruct the vote, the MP behind the bill withdrew it.

“I’m so sorry,” Aymeric Caron, a left-wing MP, vegan and animal rights’ campaigner, told the national assembly as he announced the decision in raucous and bad-tempered scenes.

Though public opinion is firmly in favour of outlawing the practice, the bill had already been expected to be rejected by a majority of lawmakers who are wary about stirring up the bullfighting heartlands in the south of the country. 

“We need to go towards a conciliation, an exchange,” President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, adding that he did not expect the draft law to pass. “From where I am sitting, this is not a current priority.” 

His government has urged members of the ruling centrist coalition not to support the text from the opposition France Unbowed party, even though many members are known to personally favour it. 

During a first debate of the parliament’s law commission last week, a majority voted against the proposal by Caron, who denounced the “barbarism” of a tradition that was imported from Spain in the 1850s.

“Caron has antagonised people instead of trying to smooth it over,” a lawmaker from Macron’s party told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The bill proposes modifying an existing law penalising animal cruelty to remove exemptions for bullfights that can be shown to be “uninterrupted local traditions”.

These are granted in towns such as Bayonne and Mont-de-Marsan in southwest France and along the Mediterranean coast including Arles, Beziers and Nimes. 

Around 1,000 bulls are killed each year in France, according to the National Observatory of Bull Cultures.

– ‘Tackling death’ –

Many so-called “bull towns” depend on the shows for tourism and see the culture of bull-breeding and the spectacle of the fight as part of their way of life — idolised by artists from Ernest Hemingway to Pablo Picasso.

They organised demonstrations last Saturday, while animal rights protesters gathered in Paris — highlighting the north-south and rural-versus-Paris divide at the heart of the debate. 

“Caron, in a very moralising tone, wants to explain to us, from Paris, what is good or bad in the south,” the mayor of Mont-de-Marsan, Charles Dayot, told AFP recently.

Other defenders of “la Corrida” in France view the focus on the sport as hypocritical when factory farms and industrial slaughter houses are overlooked.

“These animals die too and we don’t talk enough about it,” said Dalia Navarro, who formed the pro-bullfighting group Les Andalouses in southern Arles.

Modern society “has more and more difficulty in accepting seeing death. But la Corrida tackles death, which is often a taboo subject,” she told AFP.

Previous judicial attempts to outlaw bullfighting have repeatedly failed, with courts routinely rejecting lawsuits lodged by animal rights activists, most recently in July 2021 in Nimes.

The debate in France about the ethics of killing animals for entertainment is echoed in other countries with bullfighting histories, including Spain and Portugal as well as Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.

In June, a judge in Mexico City ordered an indefinite suspension of bullfighting in the capital’s historic bullring, the largest in the world.

The first bullfight took place in France in 1853 in Bayonne to honour Eugenie de Montijo, the Spanish wife of Napoleon III.

adc-cs-iw-adp/sjw/pvh

It took the team from the Loria research lab six months to crack the letter's code

A team of researchers has cracked a five century-old code which reveals a rumoured French plot to kill the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V.

Charles was one of the most powerful men of the 16th century, presiding over a vast empire that took in much of western Europe and the Americas during a reign of more than 40 years.

It took the team from the Loria research lab in eastern France six months to decipher the letter written in 1547 by the emperor to his ambassador in France.

The tumultuous period saw a succession of wars and tensions between Spain and France, ruled at that time by Francis I, the Renaissance ruler who brought Leonardo da Vinci from Italy.

The letter from Charles V to Jean de Saint-Mauris had languished forgotten for centuries in the collections of the Stanislas library in Nancy.

Cecile Pierrot, a cryptographer from Loria, first heard of its existence at a dinner in 2019, and after much searching was able to set eyes on it in 2021.

Bearing the signature of Charles V, it was at once mysterious and utterly incomprehensible, she told reporters on Wednesday. 

– ‘Snapshot of strategy’ –

In painstaking work backed by computers, Pierrot found “distinct families” of some 120 symbols used by Charles V.

“Whole words are encrypted with a single symbol” and the emperor replaced vowels coming after consonants with marks, she said, an inspiration probably coming from Arabic.

In another obstacle, he also used symbols that mean nothing to mislead any adversary trying to decipher the message.

The breakthrough came in June, when Pierrot managed to make out a phrase in the letter, and the team then cracked the code with the help of historian Camille Desenclos.

“It was painstaking and long work but there was really a breakthrough that happened in one day, where all of a sudden we had the right hypothesis,” she said.

Another letter from Jean de Saint-Mauris, where the receiver had doodled a form of transcription code in the margin, also helped.

– More discoveries to come –

Desenclos said it was “rare as a historian to manage to read a letter that no one had managed to read for five centuries.”

It “confirms the somewhat degraded state” in 1547 of relations between Francis I and Charles V, who had signed a peace treaty three years earlier, she said.

But relations were still tense between the two, with various attempts to weaken each other, she said. 

So much so that one nugget of information revealed was the rumour of an assassination plot against Charles V that was said to have been brewing in France, Desenclos said.

She said “not much had been known” about the plot but it underlined the monarch’s “fear”.

The researchers now hope to identify other letters between the emperor and his ambassador “to have a snapshot of Charles V’s strategy in Europe”, she said. 

“It is likely that we will make many more discoveries in the coming years,” the historian said.