26 Mar 2015

Participants at the just ended Illegal Wildlife Trade conference have called upon the UN General Assembly to address the illegal wildlife trade at its 69th Session.

In a statement released by the representatives of governments and regional economic integration organisations that took part in the conference, participants welcomed efforts of the group of friends on poaching and illicit wildlife trafficking to develop an ambitious draft General Assembly resolution and encouraged them to consult as widely as possible.

Participants also committed themselves to once again eradicate the market for illegal wildlife products through strengthening their partnership with business and others and through regional collaboration agreements to reduce the demand and supply sides for illegal wildlife products.

The statement also stated that markets for illegal wildlife trade would be eradicated through conducting and supporting research to improve understanding of market drivers, including monitoring the effectiveness of demand reduction strategies and collating a portfolio of demand reduction good practice.

Another action taken was to ensure effective legal frameworks and deterrents, which was one of the resolutions at the London conference with a view to ensure that criminal offenses such as poaching and wildlife trafficking are recognised as serious crimes.

Hence the conference resolved to call upon the international community to review and amend national legislation as necessary so that offenses connected to the illegal wildlife trade are treated as predicate offenses.

“We will adopt, as far as possible, measures authorising both investigations and prosecutions to enable confiscations of proceeds of crime derived from illegal wildlife trade offenses to ensure that criminals involved in this trade do not benefit from the proceeds,” reads the statement.

To strengthen law enforcement, the conference has pledged to engage with the transport industry within countries to raise awareness of the role they play. The conference participants welcomed the creation of an international taskforce on the transport on the transport industry and the illegal wildlife trade.

Another component of the statement is sustainable livelihoods and economic development, noting that the active engagement of local people is key to effective monitoring and law enforcement.

Vietnam has offered to host a third high-level conference in 2016 to review progress and further strengthen action. Botswana will host the conference again the year after. ENDS