Recommendations from conservation experts’ meeting available
Montréal, Canada, 24th November 2011—recommendations from the recent Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) preparatory meeting held earlier this month in Montréal have been made public.
During the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) meeting, TRAFFIC focussed its efforts on supporting the negotiations on and highlighting the needs for unanimously agreed recommendations for the sustainable use of wild fauna, particularly those from tropical and subtropical forests.
Delegates at SBSTTA included almost 500 expert representatives from governments (Parties), UN agency observers, Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Organisations (IPLCs), Inter-Governmental organisations and NGOs, including TRAFFIC and WWF. Their deliberations have now been published.
Following some minor revisions, the recommendations of the Liaison Group on Bushmeat, derived from the June 2011 meeting between the CBD Liaison Group on Bushmeat and the CITES Central African Bushmeat Working Group, were welcomed by the Parties to SBSTTA to be put forward for consideration at the CBD’s Conference of the Parties (CoP) in India next year.
An earlier, well-attended side-event co-organised by the CBD Secretariat, an IPLC organisation and TRAFFIC gave unanimous support for the recommendations on bushmeat that were under consideration by SBSTTA. The recommendations had been developed in a broad participatory approach, with the strong support of TRAFFIC, IPLCs, IUCN and WWF.
Roland Melisch, TRAFFIC’s Senior Director for Africa and Europe said: “The recommendations on sustainable use are a key output of this meeting of conservation experts and if adhered to by Parties will strongly help towards achieving the second objective of the CBD—the sustainable use of biodiversity and its components.”
“It is heartening that the recommendations highlight the need to develop and promote methods and systems of monitoring and to support law enforcement whilst recognizing customary traditional use, and that the Parties further agreed to support capacity building related to those issues.”
During a second side-event organized by Japan’s Ministry of Environment on the East and Southeast Asia Biodiversity Information Initiative (ESABII), Claire Beastall, Senior Programme Officer with TRAFFIC in South-East Asia spoke about her role through the Initiative of training trainers from ASEAN nations on wildlife trade regulation and identification of species.
During its initial phase, 70 participants from 12 countries in East and South-East Asia received training through the Initiative.
“Japan is to be congratulated for its support of an applied taxonomy capacity-building initiative under the CBD,” said Beastall.
TRAFFIC’s participation at SBSTTA15 was supported by WWF and Japan’s Ministry of Environment.
