Wildlife Trade Working Group
Chair: Rob Atkinson, RSPCA
Vice Chair: Cathy Williamson, Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society
Secretary: Jodie Bettis
The Wildlife and Trade Working Group works to improve the conservation of wild flora and fauna threatened by international trade by seeking to ensure the proper implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in the UK.
QUARTERLY UPDATE: April to June 2010
In May Link attended the Defra Joint NGO Liaison Group (JLG) meeting of conservationists and traders, at which the Chair of Link’s Wildlife Trade Working Group made a statement on behalf of the group, thanking the UK delegation for efforts during the fifteenth CITES meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP15) in March, and recognising the difficulties that were faced around EU coordination.
The main focus of discussions at the JLG meeting was the outcomes of CoP15 and consideration of the next stages. Defra indicated that it had had some successes around e-trading proposals, but agreed with the NGOs that CoP15 had produced disappointing results.
JNCC has recently invited Link to help identify the priorities for the enforcement of CITES wildlife crimes in the UK, through JNCC’s Wildlife Law Enforcement Working Group (WLEWG). The WLEWG aims to bring together Statutory and Non-Governmental Organisations dealing with wildlife crime in the UKand agree the top priorities for enforcement of crimes of conservation importance. These priorities will then be fed into the National Wildlife Crime Unit strategic assessment.
