Improve sustainability in species conservation
More effective sustainability review and plugging loopholes in trade in endangered animals and plants: These topics were the focus of the meeting of the Animals and Plants Committee of the Multilateral Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Geneva.
The multilateral convention CITES protects animals and plants against overexploitation through international trade. Current challenges were discussed at a ten-day meeting in Geneva. The meetings of the Animals Committee were chaired for the first time by Mathias Lörtscher from Switzerland.
According to Lörtscher, the main topic in the animal committee was the more efficient sustainability review, as well as the implementation of a new process with which loopholes in the trade are to be closed. Specifically, the aim is to prevent wild-caught animals from being exported disguised as farmed animals.
If the proportion of breeding animals suddenly increases sharply, if a large number of breeding animals are exported over a certain period of time, or if there is a switch from declared wild catches to breeding animals, the countries must expect questions. "With this new procedure, we can pick out countries that have conspicuous numbers as far as the export of certain animal species is concerned," said Lörtscher, who heads the Species Protection and Third Country Imports Division at the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO). Thus, 22 country/species combinations have been selected for which proof must now be provided to the Animal Committee that the designated number of breeding animals can effectively be produced in the country in question.
According to Lörtscher, protection, knowledge and sustainability should also be deepened for sharks and the various eel species worldwide. For sharks, countries were asked to implement their national action plans. For eel species, the status of populations, the influence of international trade on these species and the contribution that CITES can make to their protection are to be analyzed.
Timber trade
The Plant Committee was mainly concerned with the trade in woods. Here the focus was on the one hand on the sustainability review and on the other hand on the implementation of the decisions of the last Conference of the Parties. The enforcement of the import controls of the newly included rosewoods offers great difficulties for many countries and solutions for these problems were sought. In addition, the topic of trade in orchid extracts, which are used in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries, was discussed in depth under the leadership of Switzerland. The FSVO was represented by Ursula Moser, who also represents the European region in the Plant Committee.
CITES
The multilateral convention CITES protects animals and plants against overexploitation through international trade. Endangered species should only be traded to the extent that their natural populations allow. A sustainable, regulated trade is often a more efficient protection than an absolute trade ban. The FSVO is the enforcement authority for CITES in Switzerland.
