WASHINGTON — November 23, 2013 — The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), has made a formal request on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to the United States-CARICOM Council on Trade and Investment, to reject the petition of WildEarth Guardians, an environmental NGO based in Denver, Colorado, calling on US authorities to list the queen conch (Strombus gigas) as a “threatened” or “endangered” species under the USA Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Speaking at a meeting of the Council held in Washington, DC, on Friday, November 15, CRFM executive director, Milton Haughton said: “We oppose the petition to list the queen conch as an endangered or threatened species on the ground that the petitioner’s information is unreliable and obsolete.”
The queen conch is a high-value species, in high demand on the international market. Haughton noted that such a listing could restrict or prohibit Caribbean imports of queen conch to the US.
At the meeting of the US-CARICOM Council on Trade and Investment, senior officials discussed, among other things, the removal of barriers to bilateral trade as important work to be done under the recently inaugurated US-CARICOM Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
“If queen conch is listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA, conch exports from the CARICOM States to the United States market would be prohibited,” Haughton noted. “This would result in significant social and economic hardship for thousands of Caribbean fishermen, fish processors/exporters and their families, and fishing communities, and undermine peace and stability in coastal communities that rely on the queen conch resource, because it will effectively deprive them of their source of income and livelihoods.”