Environmentalists and scientists warned of collapsing fish stocks and tiny Pacific nation Palau sounded the alarm for sharks as diplomats Monday launched a weeklong review of high seas fisheries.
The international conference will "take a hard look" at how to put some teeth in a 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, according to conference chairman David Balton, a U.S. deputy assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries.
Palau's call for an international moratorium on shark finning came at the outset of a review held once every four years to address the declining numbers of fish stocks under the U.N. agreement, which took effect in 2001.
Palau's U.N. Ambassador Stuart Beck said the killing of 73 million sharks a year shows just how badly wrong things have gotten with ocean mismanagement.
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