Increased sustainability in species conservation
Bern, 28.07.2017 - A more efficient review of sustainability and closure of loopholes in trade with endangered animals and plants: These topics were the focus of the meeting of the CITES Animals and Plants Committees held over the past ten days in Geneva. The Animals Committee sessions were chaired for the first time by Mathias Lörtscher from Switzerland. The multilateral CITES Convention protects animals and plants from overuse as a result of international trade.
According to Lörtscher, the main topic of discussion in the Animals Committee was greater efficiency in the sustainability review process and the implementation of a new process designed to close trade loopholes. Specifically, the aim is to prevent wild-caught animals being exported under the guise of captive-bred animals.
The countries must expect questions to be asked if there is a sharp rise in the proportion of captive-bred animals, if a very large number of captive-bred animals are exported over a certain period, or if animals declared as wild-caught are changed to captive-bred. “This new process will enable us to identify countries with conspicuous numbers of exports of certain animal species,” said Lörtscher, who is head of the Species Conservation and Third-country Imports department at the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO). Twenty-two country/species combinations have been selected for which evidence must now be provided to the Animals Committee that the declared number of captive-bred animals can actually be produced in the country concerned.
Lörtscher said that protection, knowledge and sustainability will additionally be enhanced worldwide for sharks and various eel species. The countries were called on to implement their national action plans for sharks. The status of eel populations, the impact of international trade on these species and the contribution that CITES can make to their conservation will be analysed.
Trade in timber
The Plants Committee considered mainly trade in timber. The focus here was on the sustainability review and the implementation of decisions resulting from the last Conference of Parties. Many countries are having great difficulty enforcing the import controls on the recently included rosewood species, and solutions for these problems were sought. There was also an in-depth discussion, chaired by Switzerland, of trade in orchid extracts used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry. The FSVO was represented by Ursula Moser, who is also the representative for the European region on the Plants Committee.
CITES
The multilateral CITES Convention protects animals and plants from overuse as a result of international trade. Endangered species should only be traded to the extent permitted by their natural populations. Sustainable, regulated trade is often a more efficient form of protection than an absolute ban on trade. The FSVO is the authority responsible for enforcing CITES in Switzerland.
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