• Slide number 0
    African lion (Pan­thera leo)
  • Slide number 1
    Chee­tah (Aci­nonyx juba­tus)
  • Slide number 2
    Clouded leop­ard (Neo­fe­lis neb­u­losa) | more info
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    Euro­pean wild­cat (Felis sil­vestris)
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    Jaguar (Pan­thera onca)
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    Jaguarundi (Her­pail­u­rus yagouaroundi)
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    Puma, Moun­tain lion, Cougar (Puma con­color)
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    Ocelot (Leop­ar­dus pardalis)
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    Pal­las’ cat, Manul (Oto­colobus manul)
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    Sand cat (Felis mar­garita)
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    Ser­val (Lep­tail­u­rus ser­val)
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    Snow leop­ard (Pan­thera uncia) | more info
  • Slide number 12
    South Chines tiger (Pan­thera tigris ssp. amoyen­sis)

201617Jan16:30

Progress needed in com­bat­ing wildlife and for­est crime – but how?

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 17 Jan­u­ary 2016 | mod­i­fied 17 Jan­u­ary 2016
Archived

Elephant corpse ChadCITES Stand­ing Com­mit­tee will review progress made in prepar­ing and imple­ment­ing National Ivory Action Plans, domes­tic leg­is­la­tion, and addi­tional mea­sures to pro­tect Asian big cats, chee­tahs, African grey par­rots, pan­golins, rhi­nos, sharks and timber.

Close to 500 del­e­gates from across the globe gath­ered in Geneva, Mon­day 11 Jan­u­ary, to tackle cru­cial wildlife con­ser­va­tion and man­age­ment issues that threaten the sur­vival of a myr­iad of wild plants and animals.

The 66th meet­ing of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee of the Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tional Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) — world’s wildlife trade reg­u­la­tor since 1975 — addressed issues, such as the ille­gal killing of ele­phants and rhi­nos, and the ille­gal trade in Asian big cats, pan­golins and high value tim­ber species, includ­ing rosewood.

The meet­ing also addressed the ade­quacy of national leg­is­la­tion to imple­ment CITES in 17 pri­or­ity coun­tries and the lack of sub­mis­sion of annual reports of trade, includ­ing con­sid­er­ing com­pli­ance mea­sures. A review of sig­nif­i­cant vol­umes of trade in selected species was also con­sid­ered, together with rec­om­men­da­tions to ensure the trade in these species is sustainable.

The Com­mit­tee will final­ize its rec­om­men­da­tions to the 17th tri­en­nial World Wildlife Con­fer­ence (CoP17), at which the 181 Par­ties to CITES will take crit­i­cal deci­sions on wildlife trade pol­icy and the scope of reg­u­la­tory con­trol over inter­na­tional trade in spe­cific species.

Tack­ling illicit wildlife traf­fick­ing has risen to the top of the polit­i­cal agenda and a global col­lec­tive effort is under­way to reverse the dis­turb­ing trends affect­ing ele­phants, rhi­nos, pan­golins, rose­wood and other species.
John E. Scan­lon, Secretary-​General of CITES »

2016 will be a crit­i­cal year for review­ing the on-​ground impacts of our col­lec­tive endeav­ours, fur­ther strength­en­ing poli­cies, bud­gets, laws and enforce­ment, as well as enhanc­ing mea­sures to reduce demand for ille­gal wildlife prod­ucts, which will all come together at CITES CoP17 in Johan­nes­burg in just 256 days from now,” said Mr. Scanlon.

At the same time, we are see­ing scaled up efforts to improve legal and sus­tain­able trade, such as through CITES Par­ties’ con­certed efforts to imple­ment CITES list­ings of sharks.” added Scanlon.

Com­pli­ance mea­sures: pos­si­ble rec­om­men­da­tions to sus­pend trade

Dur­ing the course of the week, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee has con­sid­ered com­pli­ance mea­sures, includ­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to sus­pend trade, which will affect a num­ber of Par­ties. These include:

  • 7 coun­tries may be sub­ject to a rec­om­men­da­tion to sus­pend trade in all CITES-​listed species for fail­ing to make suf­fi­cient progress in prepar­ing and adopt­ing national leg­is­la­tion to imple­ment and enforce CITES.

  • 20 species– and country-​specific trade sus­pen­sions will be dis­cussed result­ing from the ongo­ing Review of Sig­nif­i­cant Trade process, which assesses whether the lev­els of trade that Par­ties allow for cer­tain wild ani­mals or plants are sus­tain­able. These range from mon­keys and pythons from Laos and chameleons from Benin, Cameroon and Ghana, to giant clams from Solomon Islands and corals from Fiji.

    The sus­pen­sion of trade in some high-​value tim­ber species from Mada­gas­car: 48 species of Dal­ber­gia (5 rose­woods and 43 pal­isanders) and 233 species of Diospy­ros (ebonies) in con­sid­er­a­tion of the con­tin­ued ille­gal log­ging and ille­gal exports.

  • the sus­pen­sion of com­mer­cial trade in African grey par­rots (Psit­ta­cus eritha­cus) from the Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of Congo (DRC).

  • Some coun­tries may be sub­ject to poten­tial com­pli­ance mea­sures for not sub­mit­ting annual reports on trade in CITES-​listed species.

Com­bat­ing corruption

The issue of cor­rup­tion has been a mat­ter of dis­cus­sion at the meet­ing. A num­ber of CITES-​listed species are high value items tar­geted by orga­nized crime groups, and this makes the offi­cers respon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing trade in spec­i­mens of these species poten­tially vul­ner­a­ble to cor­rup­tion. It is becom­ing increas­ingly impor­tant for CITES Par­ties to ensure that ade­quate mea­sures are in place to iden­tify, pre­vent and address cor­rup­tion in line with the UN Con­ven­tion against Corruption.

The chang­ing pat­tern of inter­na­tional trade from wild to non-​wild sources

The pro­por­tion of CITES-​listed ani­mals species in inter­na­tional trade that are reported as hav­ing been bred in cap­tiv­ity, born in cap­tiv­ity or ranched has been steadily increas­ing over many years. For com­mer­cial trade in live ani­mals, it accounted for over half of all reported trade dur­ing the period 20002012. A sim­i­lar trend appears for plant spec­i­mens that have been arti­fi­cially prop­a­gated. This trend is expected to con­tinue, par­tic­u­larly if demand for ani­mals and plants remains the same, or increases, with sup­plies from the wild being increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to obtain. How­ever, the impact of this change on the con­ser­va­tion and sus­tain­able use of the species con­cerned is poorly known and deserves closer analysis.

Declar­ing spec­i­mens as cap­tive bred or arti­fi­cially prop­a­gated has also been used to “laun­der” ani­mals and plants ille­gally sourced from the wild. Del­e­gates will con­sider pro­pos­als for CoP17 designed to improve the imple­men­ta­tion of the Con­ven­tion in rela­tion to spec­i­mens of non-​wild source.

Wildlife and For­est Crime is seri­ous


(Source: TRAF­FIC Inter­na­tional YouTube channel)

Strate­gic Pro­gramme of ICCWC

The Inter­na­tional Con­sor­tium on Com­bat­ing Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) has unveiled this week a series of doc­u­ments and pro­grammes, includ­ing its Strate­gic Pro­gramme 20162020 and an Indi­ca­tor Frame­work for Com­bat­ing Wildlife and For­est Crime, and high­lighted 5 years of achieve­ments in com­bat­ing wildlife crime.

Ele­phants
The level of ele­phant poach­ing in Africa has declined some­what since the peak reached 2011, but remains at unsus­tain­able high lev­els. This trend appears to cor­re­late with pop­u­la­tion declines in parts of the con­ti­nent.
The meet­ing dis­cussed the progress made in the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of National Ivory Action Plans (NIAPs) by 19 coun­tries (8 Par­ties of “pri­mary con­cern”, 8 Par­ties of “sec­ondary con­cern” and 3 Par­ties of “impor­tance to watch”) iden­ti­fied as most heav­ily impli­cated in the ille­gal trade in ivory includ­ing source, tran­sit and des­ti­na­tion States. This is a major con­crete effort ini­ti­ated by CITES to address the surge in ele­phant poach­ing and the ille­gal trade in ele­phant ivory, which has proven to be a suc­cess­ful approach to address a com­pli­cated issue.
Rhi­noc­eros
Despite con­sid­er­able efforts to com­bat rhi­noc­eros poach­ing and rhi­noc­eros horn traf­fick­ing, the num­ber of rhi­noc­er­oses killed ille­gally remains at alarm­ingly high lev­els year after year. The activ­i­ties con­ducted by key coun­tries have been dis­cusseded at the meet­ing. The high value of rhi­noc­eros horn makes it a lucra­tive and attrac­tive com­mod­ity for transna­tional orga­nized crime groups. It is increas­ingly impor­tant for author­i­ties to deploy the same tools and tech­niques used to com­bat other seri­ous domes­tic and transna­tional orga­nized crimes such as drugs and arms traf­fick­ing, to com­bat wildlife crime, includ­ing rhino poach­ing and ille­gal rhino horn trade, tar­get­ing those indi­vid­u­als man­ag­ing and orga­niz­ing these ille­gal activities.
Asiatic big cats
Traf­fick­ing in Asian big cats con­tin­ues to be detected, and fur­ther strength­ened enforce­ment efforts are there­fore vital to com­bat ille­gal traf­fick­ing and imple­men­ta­tion of exist­ing man­age­ment prac­tices and con­trols, to pre­vent ani­mals com­ing from cap­tive breed­ing facil­i­ties from enter­ing ille­gal trade. The Sec­re­tariat and the inter-​sessional work­ing group on Asian big cats reported on the imple­men­ta­tion of a set of deci­sions and rec­om­men­da­tions on Asian big cats adopted at CoP16 and at the pre­vi­ous CITES Stand­ing Com­mit­tee. Good prac­tices have been high­light­eded, such as a transna­tional intelligence-​led Oper­a­tion PAWS II (Pro­tec­tion of Asian Wildlife Species II) ini­ti­ated by INTER­POL, and India’s leg­isla­tive frame­work to pre­vent Asian big cat parts and deriv­a­tives from enter­ing into ille­gal trade and to man­age dis­posal of spec­i­mens from Asian big cats. A set of draft deci­sions and rec­om­men­da­tions to CoP17 have been con­sid­ereded by the Com­mit­tee, includ­ing enforce­ment mea­sures to dis­rupt and dis­man­tle the crim­i­nal groups involved in traf­fick­ing in Asian big cat spec­i­mens, the impacts of domes­tic and inter­na­tional trade in Asian big cat spec­i­mens on wild pop­u­la­tion, cap­tive breed­ing of Asian big cats and stock­pile management.
Chee­tah
The first com­pre­hen­sive study of the global legal and ille­gal trade in chee­tahs, pre­sented to the pre­vi­ous CITES Stand­ing Com­mit­tee, iden­ti­fied ille­gal trade as one of the main chal­lenges fac­ing chee­tah, a CITES Appen­dix I species since 1975. East­ern Africa is the region with the high­est recorded lev­els of ille­gal traf­fick­ing in live chee­tahs, with the Gulf States being the pri­mary des­ti­na­tion. The Stand­ing Com­mit­tee work­ing group on chee­tah has gath­ered fur­ther infor­ma­tion from 33 Par­ties and con­vened a chee­tah work­shop in Kuwait in Novem­ber 2015. Pub­lic aware­ness, enhanced coop­er­a­tion in law enforce­ment between East Africa and the Mid­dle East, coop­er­a­tion on the dis­posal of con­fis­cated live chee­tahs and devel­op­ment of capac­ity build­ing tools are iden­ti­fied as main solu­tions to address the issues. The work­ing group is propos­ing a set of rec­om­men­da­tions and draft deci­sions to CoP17.
Export of Grey par­rots from DRC
The Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of Congo (DRC) is cur­rently the range State with the largest vol­ume of exports of wild-​sourced grey par­rots. Accord­ing to trade records reported by import­ing coun­tries, DRC has exceeded the annual export quota for var­i­ous con­sec­u­tive years. There are no recent sci­en­tific stud­ies on the sta­tus of the DRC pop­u­la­tions of grey par­rot, which can pro­vide a sci­ence base for the estab­lish­ment of quo­tas. There are how­ever sug­ges­tions that the pop­u­la­tions are declin­ing. Fur­ther­more, the mor­tal­ity rate in domes­tic trans­port, pre­ced­ing export, is alarm­ingly high (50 per cent or higher).

In the light of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee con­sid­ered a rec­om­men­da­tion for all Par­ties to sus­pend com­mer­cial trade in grey par­rots from DRC until all the con­cerns and rec­om­men­da­tions have been suf­fi­ciently addressed.

Pan­golins
All Pan­golin species (4 Asian and 4 African species) were included Appen­dix II of CITES in 1994. Since 2000, there has been a zero annual quota for Asian pan­golin species. Ille­gal trade in pan­golin spec­i­mens is a grow­ing inter­na­tional prob­lem not only affect­ing Asian pan­golin range States, but also those in Africa. The Work­ing Group on Pan­golins has been work­ing to for­mu­late rec­om­men­da­tions to address the ille­gal trade in pan­golin species, includ­ing on mon­i­tor­ing and man­age­ment, leg­is­la­tion, enforce­ment, stock­pile man­age­ment, cap­tive breed­ing, aware­ness rais­ing, edu­ca­tion and demand man­age­ment. The Work­ing Group reported on its work at the meeting.

Sunda Pan­golin release after res­cue from ille­gal wildlife trade:


(Source: United for Wildlife YouTube channel)

Snakes
Snakes are bred in high num­bers in cer­tain coun­tries to sup­ply the demand for food, skins and pets. The har­vest­ing of snakes, and in some cases the pro­cess­ing of their skins and other body parts, is of eco­nomic impor­tance and con­tributes impor­tant rev­enue to local com­mu­ni­ties. How­ever, unreg­u­lated or unsus­tain­able trade in snakes can pose a sig­nif­i­cant threat to wild snake pop­u­la­tions, and inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion is needed to address these threats. In this light, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee con­sid­ered the draft­ing of a Res­o­lu­tion on the con­ser­va­tion, sus­tain­able use of and trade in snakes, based on the lat­est sci­en­tific find­ings. The Com­mit­tee also started devel­op­ing guid­ance for trace­abil­ity sys­tems for snake skins.
Sharks
The Stand­ing Com­mit­tee was asked by the CITES Ani­mals Com­mit­tee to dis­cuss sev­eral legal, reg­u­la­tory and enforce­ment related ele­ments of the new shark list­ings, among them the trace­abil­ity of shark prod­ucts in trade. The Sec­re­tariat, in sup­port of this work, com­mis­sioned two stud­ies, which are now avail­able on the CITES Sharks Portal.
Tree species
Par­ties will be invited to con­sider strength­en­ing coop­er­a­tion at all lev­els, not only among range States, but also with tran­sit and des­ti­na­tion coun­tries, to reduce the cur­rent lev­els of ille­gal trade in these valu­able species to the min­i­mum pos­si­ble. Also, the Sec­re­tariat is propos­ing to con­tinue strength­en­ing capac­i­ties world­wide to imple­ment CITES for rose­wood, pal­isanders and ebonies for the next three years after the upcom­ing CITES CoP17.
Trace­abil­ity
The CITES com­mu­nity has recently seen many ref­er­ences of the need to develop and imple­ment trace­abil­ity sys­tems, includ­ing mark­ing, labelling and tag­ging sys­tems, through dif­fer­ent dis­cus­sions on species and related issues. These include snakes, queen conch, tim­ber, sharks, and croc­o­diles, to name a few. The sep­a­rate emer­gence of dis­cus­sions on these species seem to indi­cate an increas­ing recog­ni­tion by the Par­ties of the need to strengthen the sup­ply chain for spec­i­mens of CITES-​listed species in inter­na­tional trade.

The impor­tance of trace­abil­ity, in gen­eral, is widely rec­og­nized in many dif­fer­ent com­mod­ity sec­tors, such as in agri-​foods. Many stake­hold­ers already work on devel­op­ing var­i­ous sys­tems, stan­dards, and gov­er­nance of trace­abil­ity, and a care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion is needed to ensure that Par­ties are able to choose the option that suits them, while avoid­ing any dupli­ca­tion of efforts.

Del­e­gates con­sid­ered whether the issue of trace­abil­ity of CITES-​listed species in inter­na­tional trade could be bet­ter defined and con­sol­i­dated, so as to pro­vide a holis­tic guid­ance on the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of trace­abil­ity sys­tems for dif­fer­ent species and dif­fer­ent mar­ket chains. A ground-​breaking trace­abil­ity review — com­piled by TRAF­FIC — of how trade in species listed in the Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tional Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) can be tracked along the sup­ply chain, must have been helpful.


(Source: United Nations Envi­ron­ment Pro­gramme press release, 12.01.2016)


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Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

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