Nairobi, Sept 14 – The United Nations General Assembly this week adopted a far-reaching resolution on tackling illegal wildlife trafficking.
Measures in the resolution, adopted on September 11, reinforce the focus on key areas in the fight against illicit trafficking in wildlife, including enhanced national legislation, supporting sustainable livelihoods, stronger law enforcement, countering corruption, deploying information technologies and undertaking well-targeted demand reduction efforts.
“This new UNGA Resolution reinforces the heightened level of political concern over the devastating impacts these highly destructive crimes are having on wildlife and people,” said John E. Scanlon, Secretary-General of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), welcoming the new resoution.
The resolution recognizes the important work of the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), a collaborative effort of the CITES Secretariat, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Bank and the World Customs Organization (WCO), including through supporting Member States in the implementation of the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit, which is aimed at strengthening the capacity of relevant law enforcement authorities and judiciaries in investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating wildlife-related offences.
The Assembly expressed concern that illicit trafficking in protected species of wild fauna and flora is, in some cases, an increasingly sophisticated form of transnational organized crime that poses a threat to health and safety, security, good governance and the sustainable development of States.
The resolution also stress that the protection of wildlife must be part of a comprehensive approach to achieving poverty eradication, food security, sustainable development, including conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, economic growth, social well-being and sustainable livelihoods.
It calls for firm and strengthened national measures, and an enhanced regional and global response. It is aimed at both supply and demand sides, including by strengthening the legislation necessary for the prevention, investigation and prosecution of offences, treating certain wildlife offences as a serious crimes, providing for illegal trade in wildlife offences to be treated as predicate offences (for anti-money laundering offences), recording and monitoring seizures and successful prosecutions, supporting the exchange of evidence between States and taking steps to prohibit, prevent and counter corruption.
It urges States to reduce demand for illegal wildlife products using targeted strategies to influence consumer behavior, emphasizes that the protection of wildlife must be part of a comprehensive approach to achieving, inter alia, sustainable development and sustainable livelihoods and encourages States to address sustainable and alternative livelihoods for affected communities to enable them to benefit from wildlife and wilderness.
The Resolution calls upon Member States to ensure that legal domestic markets for wildlife products are not used to mask the trade in illegal wildlife products, and in this regard urges parties to implement the CITES resolution as amended at CoP17 recommending that all governments close legal domestic ivory markets, as a matter of urgency, if these markets contribute to poaching or illegal trade.
Source: CITES
