(Updates with end of meeting, reactions) By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent THE HAGUE, June 15 (Reuters) - Elephants and eels may find life slightly easier as a result of trade curbs imposed after UN talks that ended on Friday in a modest attempt to slow what may be the worst wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs. The June 3-15 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) also agreed to curb trade in commercial species including Brazilwood timber, used in violin bows, and sawfish, which have long toothed snouts. "We have listings of commercial fish species, commercial timber species and I think that should continue," CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers told a news conference. But the 171-nation meeting rejected many other conservation proposals. On Friday, it voted down a decision reached two days ago to regulate trade in red and pink corals after a rearguard action by Mediterranean jewelry producers. Still, Wijnstekers said CITES, set up in 1975 with powers to ban or restrict trade in endangered species, was getting more involved in the billion-dollar commercial trade after spending early years focused on exotic species such as parrots or snakes. "We have always been kept away from commercial fish and commercial timber but that is now slowly disappearing," he said. There are a few exceptions, such as sturgeon -- overfished for caviar -- that have had trade protection since 1975, he said. In the most high-profile decision, the conference agreed to extend a 1989 ban on elephant ivory exports for nine years, after a sale from stockpiles by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe as part of a plan to end poaching. POACHING The deal was a compromise between nations wanting a 20-year ban to try to crack down on poaching, and the four southern African nations which say that farmers and villagers are suffering from conflicts with rising elephant populations. Among commercial fish species, the conference voted to restrict trade in the European eel after stocks crashed due to over-fishing. Baby eels can sometimes be more expensive than caviar, for the same weight. The talks voted down a European Union call to regulate trade in spiny dogfish, sometimes eaten in Britain's fish and chips. Argentina and Canada said on Friday that the problem was EU over-fishing, not trade. The meeting also rejected an EU drive to restrict trade in Latin American cedar and rosewood trees used in furniture and musical instruments. "There were some good things and some bad," said Susan Lieberman, head of the WWF conservation group's species programme. "But there are a lot of countries that would prefer a few more years' exploitation than long-term protection." The talks are part of global efforts to slow what the United Nations says is the worst extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, caused by loss of habitats, pollution, rising human populations and climate change. The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity said last month that species are disappearing at a rate of three an hour. By that reckoning, about 1,000 species vanished during the talks. "Where are the problems of biological diversity? It's clear it's in the forests, it's clear that it's in the marine. And then you run into huge economic interests," said Jochen Flasbarth, the German official who heads the EU delegation. CITES, which has just 24 staff, merely looks at species affected by trade while other U.N. agencies have more power over other areas such as loss of habitats, Wijnstekers noted. "Three species an hour is not caused by trade."
